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Morning in the Highlands. 


Highlands. 


FRONTISPIECE. 


A 


HIGHLAND PARISH. 


By the 

Rev. NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D., 
** * * 

AUTHOR. OF 

" WEE DAVIE,” " PARISH PAPERS,” ETC. 



NEW-YORK : 

Robert Carter & Brothers, 

530 Broadway. 

1866. 













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♦ 









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The sketches and stories that com- 
pose this volume are selected from Dr. 
Macleod’s “ Beminiscences of a High- 
land Parish.” 

Those that feel an interest in a 
remarkable people who are rapidly 
passing away, will read these truthful 
sketches and simple tales with great 
delight, while such as have witnessed 
scenes akin to those described, will 
acknowledge that the pictures are drawn 
by a master hand. 
















































































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5 * 







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' • ft 



































Contents. 


PAGB 


I. 

The Highlands, 7 

II. 

The Manse, 26 

III. 

The. Boys of the Manse, 47 

1Y. 

The Manse Girls, 69 

Y. • 

The Minister and his Work, 90 

YI. 

Passing Away, 109 

VIL 

Characteristics of the Highland Peas- 
antry, 122 

VIII. 

The Widow and her Son, 154 


VI 


Gontents. 


IX. 

Tacksmen and Tenants, 163 

X. 

Marriage of Mary Campbell, 185 

XI. 

The Grave of Flory Cameron, 212 

XII. 

The “ Fools,” 235 

XIII. 

The Schoolmaster, 77.7.7 . 264 

XIV. 

The Emigrant Ship,... 287 




XV. 

The Communion Sunday, . 


304 



A 


HIGHLAND PARISH. 


I. 

The Highlands. 

“ There, westward away, where roads are unknown to 
Loch Navish, 

And the great peaks look abroad oyer Skye to the 

westernmost islands.” 

I 

T HE Highlands of Scotland, like many 
greater tilings in the world, may be 
said to be unknown, yet well known. They 
are known to the thousands of summer tour- 
ists who, every year, and from every part of 
the civilized world, gaze on the romantic 
beauties of the Trossaelis and Loch Lomond, 
skirt the Hebrides from the Firth of Clyde to 
Oban, trundle through the wild gorge of 


8 


A Highland Parish. 


Glencoe, chatter among the ruins of Iona, 
scramble over the wonders of Staffa, sail 
along the magnificent line of lakes to Inver- 
ness, reach the sombre Coolins, and disturb 
the silence of Coruisk. Pedestrians, also, 
with stick and knapsack, search the more sol- 
itary wilderness and glens of the mainland, 
from the Grampians to Boss-shire and Caith- 
ness. Sportsmen, too, whether real or only 
make-believe, have their summer quarters in 
the Highlands dotted over every moor, scat- 
tered on hill-sides and beside clear streams, 
with all the irregularity of the boulders of 
the great northern drift, but furnished with 
most of the luxuries of an English home. All 
these strangers, it must be admitted, know 
something of the Highlands. 

The tourists know the names of steamers, 
coaches, and hotels; and how they were 
cheated by boatmen, porters, or^ guides. 
They have a vague impression of misty 
mountains, stormy seas, heavy rain, difficult 
roads, crowded inns, unpronounceable Gaelic 
names, with brighter remembrances of land- 


The Highlands. 


9 


scapes whose grandeur they have probably 
never seen surpassed. Pedestrians can recall 
lonely and unfrequented paths across broken 
moorlands undulating far away, like broken 
shoreless seas, and through unploughed and 
untrodden valleys, where the bark of a shep- 
herd’s dog, and- much more the sight of a 
shepherd’s hut, were welcomed ; and they 
cannot forget panoramas, from liill-tops, or 
from rocky promontories, of lake and river, 
moor and forest, sea and island, sunshine and 
cloud, of lonely keeps and ruined homesteads, 
of infinite sheep-walks and silent glens which 
seemed to end in chaos — remembrances 
which will come to them like holy days of 
youth, to refresh and sanctify, and “ hang 
about the beatings of the heart ” amidst the 
din and fret of a city life. Sportsmen, too, 
in a sense, know the Highlands. They have 
waded up to the shoulders in Highland lakes, 
nothing visible but hat swathed with flies, 
and hand wielding the little rod and line. 
They have trod the banks and tried the pools 
of every famous stream, until the very sal- 


I 


10 A Highland Parish. 

mon that are left know tlieir features and 
their flies, and tremble for their cunning 
temptations! Or, quitting lake and stream, 
they have sped with haste to stand upon the 
Twelfth, at dawn of day, upon the blooming 
heather. When they visit old shootings, they 
hail from afar the well-known hill-sides, and 
familiar “ ground.” They can tell twenty 
miles off where birds are scarce, or where, ac- 
cording to the state of the weather, they can 
be found. The whole scenery is associated in 
their memory with the braces that have been 
bagged, the stags which have been killed, 
or — oh, horrid memory! — missed, “when 
the herd was coming right towards us, 
and all from that blockhead Charlie, who 
would look if they were within shot.” The 
keepers, and gillies, and beaters, and the 
whole tribe of expectants, are also well 
known, as such , and every furrowed face is 
to those sportsmen a very poem, an epic, a 
heroic ballad, a history of the past season of 
happiness and breezy hills, as well as a proph- 
ecy of the morrow which is hoped for with 


The Highland.3. 


11 


beating heart, that blames the night and 
urges on the morn. 

There are others, too, who may be expect- 
ed to know something of the Highlands. 
Low-country sheep-farmers, redolent of wool ; 
English proprietors, who as summer visitants 
occupy the old house or castle of some extinct 
feudal chief ; and antiquaries who have 
dipped into, or even studied profoundly, the 
civil and ecclesiastical antiquities of the land. 
Nevertheless, to each and all such the High- 
lands may be as unknown in their real life, 
as the scent of the wild hog myrtle is to the 
accomplished gentleman who has no sense of 
smell ; or as a Gaelic boat-song in its words 
and spirit is to a Hindoo pundit. 

Some of our readers may very naturally be 
disposed to ask, with a sneer of contempt, 
what precise loss any human being incurs 
from want of the knowledge ? The opinion 
may be most reasonably held and expressed 
that the summer tourist, the wandering ped- 
estrian, or the autumnal sportsman, have pro- 
bably taken out of the Northern wilderness 


12 


A Highland Parish. 


all tliat was worth bringing into the South- 
ern Canaan of civilized life, and that as much 
gratitude, at least, is due for what is forgot- 
ten as for what is remembered. 

Perhaps those readers may be right. And 
if so, then, for their own comfort as well as 
for ours, we ought to warn them that if they 
have been foolish enough to accompany us 
thus far, they should pity us, hid us farewell, 
and wish us a safe deliverance from the 
mountains. 

Is there any one, let us ask, who reads 
those lines, and yet who dislikes peat-reek % 
any one who puts his fingers in his ears when 
he hears the hag-pipe — the real war-pipe — 
begin a real pibroch ? any one who dislikes 
the kilt, the Gaelic, the clans, and who does 
not believe in Ossian? any one who has a 
prejudice to the Mac, or who cannot com- 
prehend why one Mac should prefer a Mac of 
his own clan to the Mac of any other Clan ? 
any one who smiles at the ignorance of a 
Highland parson who never reads the Satur- 
day Review or the Westminster , who never 


The Highlands. 


13 

heard about one in ten of the “ schools of 
modern thought,” and who believes, without 
any mental suffering, that two and two make 
four ? any one who puts his glass to his eye 
during prayer in a Highland church, and 
looks at his fellow-traveler with a smile while 
the peasants sing their Psalms ? any one who, 
when gazing on a Highland landscape, des- 
cants to his local admirers about some hack- 
neyed Swiss scene they never saw, or enumer- 
ates a dozen Swiss Ilorns , the Wetter Horn, 
Schreckhorn, or any other horn which has 
penetrated into his brain ? Forbid that any 
such terribly clever and well-informed cosmo- 
politans should “lose ten tickings of their 
watch” in reading these reminiscences ! 

One other class sometimes found in society, 
we would especially beseech to depart ; we 
mean Highlanders ashamed of their country. 
Cockneys are bad enough, but they are sin- 
cere and honest in their idolatry of the Great 
Babylon. Young Oxonians or young barris- 
ters, even when they become slashing Lon- 
don critics, are more harmless than they 


4 


A Highland Parish. 


themselves imagine, and after all inspire less' 
awe than Ben Nevis, or than the celebrated 
agriculturist who proposed to decompose that 
mountain with acids, and to scatter the de- 
bris as a fertilizer over the Lochamber moss. 
But a Highlander ‘born, who has been nur- 
tured on oatmeal porridge and oatmeal cakes ; 
who in his youth wore home-spun cloth, and 
was innocent of shoes and stockings; who 
blushed in his attempts to speak the English 
language ; who never saw a nobler building 
for years than the little kirk in the glen, and 
who owes all that makes him tolerable in so- 
ciety to the Celtic blood which flows in spite 
of him through the veins ; — for this man to be 
proud of his English accent, to sneer at the 
everlasting hills, the old kirk and its simple 
worship, and to despise the race which has 
never disgraced him — faugh ! Peat-reek is 
frankincense in comparison with him ; let him 
not be distracted by any of our reminis- 
cences of the old country ; leave us, we be- 
seech of thee ! 

We ask not how old or how young those 


The Highlands. 


s 


are who remain with ns ; we care not what 
their theory of political economy or their 
school of modern philosophy may be ; we are 
indifferent as to their evening employment, 
whether it be darning stockings, sitting idle 
ronnd the wintry tire in the enjoyment of re- 
pose, or occupying, as invalids, their bed or 
chair. If only they are charitable souls, who 
hope all things and are not easily provoked ; 
who would like a peep into forms of society, 
and to hear about people and customs differ- 
ing in some degree from what they have 
hitherto been acquainted with; to have an 
easy chat about a country less known, per- 
haps, to them than any other in Europe, — 
then shall we gladly unfold to them our re- 
miniscences of a country and people worth 
knowing about and loving, and of a period 
in their history that is passing, if, indeed, it 
has not already passed away. 

And now, by way of further preamble to 
our Reminiscences, let us. take a bird’s-eye 
view of the parish. It is not included, by 
Highland ecclesiastical statists, among what 


1 6 


A Highland Parish. 


are called the large parishes. We have no 
idea of the number of square miles, of arable 
acres, or of waste land, which it contains ; 
but science and the trigonometrical survey 
will, it is presumed, give those details in due 
time. When viewed as passing tourists view it, 
from the sea, it has nothing remarkable about 
it, and if it is pronounced by these same tour- 
ists to be uninteresting, and “ just the sort of 
scenery one would like to pass when dining 
or sleeping,” we won’t censure the judgment. 
A castled promontory, a range *of dark preci- 
pices supporting the upland pastures, and 
streaked with white waterfalls, that are lost 
in the copse at their base, form a picture not 
very imposing when compared with “ what 
one sees everywhere.” A long ridge of hill 
rising some two thousand feet above the sea, 
its brown sides, up to a certain height, cheq- 
uered with green stripes and patches of cul- 
tivation ; brown heather-tliatclied cottages, 
with white walls ; here and there a mansion, 
whose chimneys are seen above the trees 
which shelter it : these are its chief features 


The Highlands. 


7 


along the seaboard of twenty miles. But 
how different is the whole scene when one 
lands ! New beauties reveal themselves, and 
every object seems to change in size, appear- 
ance, and relative postion. A rocky wall of 
vrondrous beauty, the rampart of the old up- 
raised beach which girdles Scotland, run3 
along the shore ; the natural wild wood of ash, 
oak, and birch, with the hazel copse, clothe 
the lower hills and shelter the herds of wan- 
dering cattle ; lonely sequestered hays are 
everywhere scooped out into beautiful har- 
bors ; points and promontories seem to grow 
out of the land, and huge dykes of whinstone 
fashion to themselves the most picturesque 
outlines ; clear streams everywhere hasten on 
to the sea ; small glens, perfect gems of 
beauty, open up their entrances into the won- 
ders of endless waterfalls and deep dark 
pools, hemmed in by steep banks hanging 
with ivy, honeysuckle, rowan-trees, and 
ferns ; while on the liill-sides such signs of cul- 
ture and industry as scattered cottages, small 


18 A Highland Parish. 

farms, and shepherds’ huts, give life to the 
whole scene. 

Let us first look northward. Almost at 
our feet is a chain of small lakes, round w T hose 
green shores, unseen from the Cairn because 
immediately beneath it. a prosperous tenantry 
once lived, of whom no trace remains, except 
those patches of ruins which mark their once 
happy homesteads. Ruins there are, too, 
which show us that whatever defects the 
Church before the Reformation had accumu- 
lated, she excelled the Church of the present 
in the greater number and beauty of her 
parish churches. There are few sights which 
more rebuke the vulgar Church parsimony 
of these later days, or which imbue us with 
more grateful and generous feelings towards 
the missionaries of an earlier and more diffi- 
cult time, than the faith and love which 
reared so many chapels on distant islands, 
and so many beautiful and costly fabrics in 
savage wildernesses, among a people who 
were too rude to appreciate such works, or 
the spirit which originated them. These old 


The Highlands. 


J 9 

Highland Church extensionists were not stim- 
ulated by party rivalry, public meetings, or 
newspaper articles. Their praise could not 
have been from men. How they got the 
means and money we know not, but this we 
believe, that 

“ They dreamt not of a perishable home 
Who thus could build 1” 

But to view the parish in all its outward 
aspect, we must ascend to the top of 

“ I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourists 

Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into 
guide-books.” 

The upward path soon leaves the cultivated 
settlements, passes several streams, winds 
across tracts of moorland, and at last reaches 
the shieldings of Corrie Borrodale. One can- 
not imagine a sweeter spot than this in which 
to repose before attempting the proper ascent 
of the hill. A stream, clear as a diamond, 
and singing its hill song, takes a sweep, and 


20 


A Highland Parish. 


folds within its embrace a bay of emerald 
grass, surrounded with blooming heather. 
Here and there appear small groups of ruins, 
mere gatherings of stones, to mark where 
man once built his temporary home. Before 
sheep-farming was introduced generally into 
the Highlands, about sixty or seventy years 
ago, the cattle ranged through the hills as 
high up as the grass grew, and it was neces- 
sary, during summer to follow them thither, 
to milk them there, and make up stores of 
butter and cheese for winter use. This led to 
the building of those summer chalets, which 
were managed chiefly by women and herd- 
boys, but visited often, perhaps daily, by the 
mistress of the farm, who took the dairy un- 
der her special charge. Thus it is that when 
one rests in such a green oasis, his fancy again 
peoples the waste with the herd-lads “ calling 
the cattle home,” and with the blytlie girls 
who milked the cattle ; he sees again the life 
among the huts, and hears the milk-songs 
and innocent glee ; and when awakened from 
- liis reverie by bleating sheep — the only living 




Highland Scenery. 





The Highlands. 


21 


tenants of the pastures, he is not disposed to 
admit the present time to be an improvement 
on the past. 

But let us up to that green spot beside the 
ravine ; then to the left along the rocks, then 
to the right till past the deep u peat-bogs,” 
and finally straight up to the Cairn. When 
we have taken breath, let us look around. 
This is the very high altar of the parish, and 
we maintain that all the glories which can be 
seen from a parish, rightfully belong to the 
parish itself, and are a part of its own rich in- 
heritance. 

But to our picture again. Opposite to the 
spectator, and rising abruptly from the valley, 
is a range of hills, broken into wild scaurs 
and clothed with copse ; while beyond these, 
rise, ridge on ridge, like a mighty ocean sea, 
heaving in gigantic billows onwards Ben 
Reshapol, until lost to sight beyond the head 
of Loch Shiel and among the braes of Locha- 
ber. Sweeping the eye from the north, to the 
west, what a glorious spectacle ! The chain 
of lakes beneath end in the lovely Loch 


22 


A Highland Parish. 


Sun art, with its beauteous bays and wooded 
islets. Over its farther shore, belonging to 
that huge parish and huge word Ardnamur- 
clian, and above picturesque hills, the more 
distant Hebrides rear their heads out of the 
ocean. Along the horizon southwards are 
seen, the Scur of Eigg lifting its gigantic pil- 
lar, the dark lines of Hum, and the islands of 
Ganna, Coll, and Tiree, the gleams of the 
ocean between. The long dark moorland as- 
cent by which we have reached the hill-top, 
now carries the eye down to the sea. That 
is a strait, worming itself for more than 
twenty miles between the mainland where we 
stand, and the island of Mull, which gathers 
up its hills into a cluster of noble peaks about 
its centre, with Bentealbli (Bentalve) and 
Benmore towering over all. A low isthmus 
right opposite, opens up an arm of the sea be- 
yond Mull, with noble headlands, beneath 
which the man who would see Staffa aright 
should sail out to the ocean with no strangers 
save a Highland crew ; for not from crowded 
steamer can he fully understand that pillared 


The Highlands. 23 

island and its cathedral cave. Let us take 
one other glance to the east — the eye follow- 
ing the Sound of Mull, and our panorama is 
completed. How nobly the Sound, dotted 
with vessels, opens up past Ardtornish and 
Duart Castles, ere it mingles with the broader 
waters that sweep in eddying tides past the 
Slate Isles, past Jura, Scarba, on to Islay, un- 
til they finally spread out into the roll and 
roar of the shoreless Atlantic. In that west- 
ern distance may be seen some white smoke 
that marks Oban, and over it Ben Cruachan, 
the most beautiful of our western hills, ac- 
companied by its grey companions, “the 
shepherds of Etive Glen.” 

We back this view from the highest hill in 
the parish for extent and varied beauty 
against any view in Europe ! It is the Riglii 
of Argyleshire ; and given only, what, alas ! is 
not easily obtained, a good day, good in trans- 
parency, good with “ gorgeous cloudland,” 
good with lights and shadows, the bright blue 
of the northern sky (more intense than the 
Italian), looking down and mingling ^ith 


24 


A Highland Parish. 


the sombre dark of the northern hills, dark 
even when relieved in autumn by the glow of 
the purple heather — given all this, and we 
know not where to find a more magnificent 
outlook over God’s fair earth. No reminis- 
cences of the outer world so haunt our mem- 
ory as those so often treasured up from that 
grey cairn ; and however frequently we have 
returned from beholding other and more fam- 
ous scenes, this one has appeared like a first 
love, only more beautiful than them all. 

As we descend from the hill, the minister — 
how oft has he gone with us there ! — tells us 
stories worth hearing, and as he alone can tell 
them ; stories of a pastor’s life, “from perils 
in the wilderness, and perils of waters, and 
perils of the sea stories of character, such 
as the lonely hills and misty moors alone can 
mould ; stories of combats among the wild 
and primitive inhabitants of the olden time ; 
and stories, too, of the early invaders of the 
land from Denmark and Norway, sea-kings, 
or pirates rather, whose names yet linger 


The Highlands. 


-where they fell in battle, as at Corrie Borro- 
clale , Corrie Lundie , and Ess Stangadal . 

But we have reached “ the manse and 
from thence we must start with onr reminis- 
cences of “ A Highland Parish.” 




II. 


The Manse. 


“ Say, ye far-travelled clouds, far-seeing hills — 

Among the happiest-looking homes of men 
Scatter’d all Britain over, through deep glen 
On airy uplands, and by forest-rills. 

And o’er wide plains, whereon the sky distils 

Her lark’s loved warblings— does aught meet your ken 
More fit to animate the Poet’s pen, 

Aught that more surely by its aspect fills 
Pure minds with sinful envy, than the abode 
Of the good Priest : who, faithful through all hours 
To his high charge, and truly serving God, 

Has yet a heart and hand for trees and flowers. 
Enjoys the walks his predecessors trod, 

Nor covets lineal rights in lands and towers ?” 


Wordsworth. 


HERE lived in the Island of Skye, more 



JL than a century ago, a small farmer or 
“ gentleman tacksman.” Some of his admir- 
ably-written letters are now before me ; but 


The Manse. 


2 7 


I know little of his history beyond the fact 
revealed in his correspondence, and preserved 
in the affectionate traditions of his descen- 
dants, that he was “ a good man,” and the 
first within the district where he lived who 
introduced the worship of God in his family. 

One great object of his ambition was to 
give his sons the best education that could be 
obtained for them, and in particular to train 
his first-born for the ministry of the Estab- 
lished Church of Scotland. Ilis wishes were 
fully realized, for the noble institution of the 
parochial school provided in the remotest dis- 
tricts of Scotland teaching of a very high or- 
der, and produced admirable classical schol- 
ars — such as even Dr. Johnson talks of with 
respect. 

Besides the schools, there was an excellent 
custom then existing among the tenantry in 
Skye, of associating themselves to obtain a good 
tutor for their sons. The tutor resided alter- 
nately at different farms, and the boys from 
the other farms in the neighborhood came 
daily to him. In this way the burden of sup- 


28 


A Highland Parish. 


porting tlie teacher, and the difficulties ot 
travelling on the part of the boys, were di- 
vided among the several families in the dis- 
trict. In autumn the tutor, accompanied 
by his more advanced pupils, jonrneyed on 
foot to Aberdeen to attend the University. 
He superintended their studies during the 
winter, and returned in spring with them to 
their Highland homes to pursue the same 
routine. The then Laird of Macleod was one 
who took a pride in being surrounded by a 
tenantry who possessed so much culture. It 
was his custom to introduce all the sons of 
his tenants who were studying in Aberdeen 
to their respective professors, and to entertain 
both professors and students in his house. 
On one such occasion, when a professor re- 
marked with surprise, “ Why, sir, these are 
all gentlemen ! ” Macleod replied, “ Gentle- 
men I found them, as gentlemen I wish to see 
them educated, and as gentlemen I hope to 
leave them behind me.” 

The “gentleman tacksman’s” eldest son 
acted as a tutor for some time, and then be- 


The Manse. 


2 9 


came minister of “the Highland Parish.” 
It was said of him that “ a finer-looking or 
prettier man never left his native island.” 
He was upwards of six feet in height, with a 
noble countenance which age only made no- 
bler. He was accompanied from Skye by a 
servant-lad, whom he had known from his 
boyhood, called “ Kauri Beg,” or little Rory. 
Rory was rather a contrast to his master in 
outward appearance. One eye was blind, but 
the other seemed to have robbed the sight 
from its extinguished neighbor to intensify its 
own. That grey eye gleamed and scintillated 
with the peculiar sagacity and reflection 
which one sees in the eye of a Skye terrier, 
but with such intervals of feeling as human 
love of the most genuine kind could alone 
have expressed. One leg, too, was slightly 
shorter than the other, and the manner in 
which Rory rose on the longer or sunk on the 
shorter, and the frequency or rapidity with 
which those alternate ups and downs in his 
life were practised, became a telegraph of 
Rory’s thoughts when no words, out of respect 


3 o 


A Highland Parish. 


to liis master, were spoken. “ So you don’t 
agree with me, Rory?” “ What’s wrong?” 
‘‘You think it dangerous to put to sea to- 
day ?” “ Yes ; the mountain-pass also would 

he dangerous? Exactly so. Then we must 
consider w T hat is to he done.” These were 
the sort of remarks which a series of slow or 
rapid movements of Rory’s liinhs often drew 
forth from his master, though no other token 
was afforded of his inner doubt or opposition. 
A better boatman, a truer genius at the helm, 
never took a tiller in his hand ; a more endur- 
ing traveller never “gaed ower the moor 
amang £he heather a better singer ot a boat- 
song never cheered the rowers, nor kept them 
as one man to their stroke ; a more devoted, 
loyal, and affectionate “ minister’s man” and 
friend never lived than Rory — first called 
“ Little Rory,” but as long as I can remenber, 
“ Old Rory.” But more of him anon. The 
minister and his servant arrived in the High- 
land Parish nearly ninety years ago, almost 
total strangers to its inhabitants, and alone 


The Manse. 


31 


they entered tlie manse to see what it was 
like. 

I ought to inform my readers that the Pres- 
byterian Church is established in Scotland, 
and that the landed proprietors in each parish 
are bound by law to build and keep in repair a 
church, suitable school, and parsonage or 
“ manse,” and also to secure a portion of land, 
or “ glebe,” for the minister. Both the 
manses and churches have of late years im- 
mensely improved in Scotland, so that in 
many cases they are now far superior to those 
in some of the rural parishes of England. 
Much still remains to be accomplished in 
this department of architecture and taste ! 
Yet even at the time I speak of, the manse 
was in its structure rather above than below 
the houses occupied by the ordinary gentry, 
with the exception of “ the big house” of the 
Laird. It has been succeeded by one more 
worthy of the times ; but the’ old manse was 
nevertheless respectable. 

The glebe was the glory of the manse ! It 


3 2 


A Highland Parish. 


was tlie largest in the county, consisting of 
about sixty acres, and containing a wonder- 
ful combination of Highland beauty. It was 
bounded on one side by a “ burn,” whose 
torrent rushed far down between lofty steep 
banks clothed with natural wood, ash, birch, 
hazel, oak, and rowan-tree, and poured its 
dark moss-water over a series of falls, and 
through deep pools, “ with beaded bubbles 
winking at the brim.” It was never tracked 
along its margin by any human being, except 
lierd-boys and their companions, who swam 
the pools, and clambered up the banks, hold- 
ing by the roots of trees, starting the king- 
fisher from his rock, or the wild cat from his 
den. On the other side of the glebe was the 
sea, with here a sandy beach, and there 
steep rocks and deep water ; small grey islets 
beyond ; with many birds, curlews, cranes, 
divers, and gulls of all sorts, giving life to 
the rocks and shore. Along the margin of 
the sea there stretched such a flat of green 
grass as suggested the name which it bore, 
of “ the Duke of Argyle’s walk.” And pac- 


The Manse. 


33 


ing along that green margin at evening, 
what sounds and wild cries were heard of 
piping sea-birds, chafing waves, the roll of 
oars, and the song from fishing-boats, which 
told of their return home. The green ter- 
race-walk which fringed the sea, was but 
the outer border of a flat that was hemmed 
in by the low precipice of the old upraised 
beach of Scotland. Higher still was a second 
storey of green fields and emerald pastures, 
broken by a lovely rocky knoll, called Fin- 
gal’s hill, whose grey head, rising out of 
green grass, bent towards the burn, and 
looked down into his own image reflected in 
the deep pools which slept as its feet. On 
that upper table-land, and beside a clear 
stream, stood the manse and garden sheltered 
by trees. Beyond the glebe began the dark 
moor, which swept higher and higher, until 
crowned by the mountain-top of which I have 
already spoken, which looked away to the 
Western Islands and to the peaks of Skye. 

The minister, like most of his brethren, 
soon took to himself a wife, the daughter of 
2 


34 


A Highland Parish. 


a neighboring u gentleman tacksman,” and 
the grand-daughter of a minister, well born, 
and well bred ; and never did man find a help 
more meet for him. In that manse they both 
lived for nearly fifty years, and his wife bore 
him sixteen children ; yet neither father nor 
mother could ever lay their hand on a child 
of theirs and say, “ We wish this one had not 
been.” They were all a source of unmingled 
joy to them. 

A small farm was added to the glebe, for it 
was found that the machinery required to 
work sixty acres of arable and pasture land 
could work more with the same expense. 
Besides, John Duke of Argyle made it a rule 
at that time to give farms at less than their 
value to the ministers on his estate ; and why, 
therefore, should not our minister, with his 
sensible, active, thrifty wife, and growing sons 
and daughters, have a small one, and thus se- 
cure for his large household abundance of 
food, including milk and butter, cheese, pota- 
toes, meal, with the excellent addition of 
mutton, and sometimes beef too ? And the 


The Manse. 


35 


good man did not attend to his parish worse 
when his living was thus bettered; nor was 
he less cheerful or earnest in duty when in 
his house “ there was bread enough and to 
spare.” 

The manse and glebe of that Highland par- 
ish were a colony which ever preached ser- 
mons, on week days as well as on Sundays, of 
industry and frugality, of a courteous hospi- 
tality and a bountiful charity, and the do- 
mestic peace, contentment, and cheerfulness 
of a holy Christian home. Several cottages 
were built by the minister and clustered in 
sheltered nooks near his dwelling. One or 
two were inhabited by laborers and shep- 
herds ; another by the weaver, who made all 
the carpets, blankets, plaids, and finer webs 
of linen and woollen cloths required for the 
household; and another by old Jenny, the 
hen- wife, herself like an old hen, waddling 
about and chucking among her numerous 
family of poultry. Old Rory, with his wife 
and family, was located near the shore, to at- 
tend at spare hours to fishing, as well as to 


A Highland Parish. 


56 

be ready with the boat for the use of the min- 
ister in his pastoral work. Two or three cot- 
tages besides these were inhabited by objects 
of charity, whose claims upon the family it 
was difficult to trace. An old sailor had 
settled down in one, but no person could tell 
anything about him, except that he been born 
in Skye, had served in the navy, had fought 
at the Nile, had no end of stories for winter 
evenings, and spinned yarns about the w T ars 
and “ foreign parts.” He had come long ago 
in distress to the manse, from whence he had 
passed after a time into the cottage, and 
there lived a dependant on the family until 
he died twenty years afterwards. A poor 
decayed gentlewoman, connected with one 
of the old families of the county, and a tenth 
cousin of the minister’s wife, had also cast 
herself in her utter loneliness, like a broken 
wave, on the glebe. She had only intended 
to remain a few days — she did not like to be 
troublesome — but she knew how she could 
rely on a blood relation, and she found it hard 
to leave, for whither could she go ? And 


The Manse. 


37 


those who had taken her in never thought of 
bidding this sister “ depart in peace, saying 
Be ye clothed and so she became a neigh- 
bor to the sailor, and was always called 
“ Mrs.” Stewart, and was treated with the 
utmost delicacy and respect, being fed, clothed 
and warmed in her cottage with the best 
which the manse could afford ; and when she 
died, she was dressed in a shroud lit for a 
lady, and tall candles, made for the occasion 
according to the old custom, were kept lighted 
round her body. Her funeral was becoming 
the gentle blood that flowed in her veins; 
and no one was glad in their heart when she 
departed, but they sincerely wept, and 
thanked God she had lived in plenty and 
had died in peace. 

Within the manse the large family of sons 
and daughters managed, somehow or other, 
to accommodate not only themselves, but to 
find permanent room also for a tutor and gov- 
erness ; and such a thing as turning any one 
away from want of room was never dreamt 
of. When hospitality demanded such a 


3 « 


A Highland Parish. 


small sacrifice, the boys would all go to the 
barn, and the girls to the chairs and sofas of 
parlor and dining-room, with fun and laugh- 
ter, joke and song, rather than not make the 
friend or stranger welcome. And seldom 
was the house without either. The “ kitchen 
end,” or lower house, with all its indoor 
crannies of closets and lofts, and outdoor ad- 
ditions of cottages, barns, and stables, was a 
little world of its own, to which wandering 
pipers, parish fools, the parish post, beggars, 
with all sorts of odd-and-end characters came, 
and where they ate, drank, and rested. As 
a matter of course, the “ upper house” had 
its own set of guests to attend to. The trav- 
eller by sea, whom adverse winds and tides 
drove into the harbor for refuge ; or the trav- 
eller by land ; or any minister passing that 
way ; or friends on a visit ; or, lastly and but 
rarely, some foreign “ Sassanach” from the 
Lowlands of Scotland or England, who dared 
then to explore the. unknown and remote 
Highlands as one now does Montenegro or 


The Manse. 


39 


the Ural Mountains — all these found a hearty- 
reception. 

One of the most welcome visitors was the 
packman. His arrival was eagerly longed 
for by all, except the minister, who trembled 
for his small purse in presence of the prolific 
pack. For this same pack often required a 
horse for its conveyance. It contained a 
choice selection of everything which a family 
was likely to require from the lowland shops. 
The haberdasher and linendraper, the watch- 
maker and jeweller, the cutler and hair- 
dresser, with sundry other crafts in the use- 
ful and fancy line, were all fully represented 
in the endless repositories of the pack. 
What a solemn affair was the opening up of 
that peripatetic warehouse ! It took a few 
days to gratify the inhabitants of manse and 
glebe, and to enable them to decide how 
their money should be invested. The boys 
held sundry councils about knives, and the 
men about razors, silk handkerchiefs, or, it 
may be, about the final choice of a silver 
watch. The servants were in nervous agita- 


4 o 


A Highland Parish. 


tion about some bit of dress. Kibbons, like 
rainbows, were unrolled ; prints held up in 
graceful folds before the light ; cheap shawls 
were displayed on the back of some handsome 
lass, who served as a model. There never 
was seen such new fashions or such cheap 
bargains ! And then how “ dear papa” was 
coaxed by mamma ; and mamma again by her 
daughters. Everything was so beautiful, so 
tempting, and was discovered to be so neces- 
sary ! All this time the packman, who was 
often of the stamp of him whom Wordsworth 
has made illustrious, was treated as a friend ; 
while the news, gathered on his travels, was 
as welcome to the minister as his goods were 
to his family. No one in the upper house 
was so vulgar as to screw him down, but felt 
it due to his respectability to give him his 
own price, which, in justice to those worthy 
old merchants, I should state was always 
reasonable. 

The manse was the grand centre to which 
all the inhabitants of the parish gravitated 
for help and comfort. Medicines for the sick 


The Manse. 


41 


"were weighed out from the chest yearly re- 
plenished in Glasgow. They were not given 
in homoeopathic doses, for Highlanders, ac- 
customed to things on a large scale, would 
have had no faith in globules, and faith was 
half their cure. Common sense and common 
medicines were found helpful to health. The 
poor, as a matter of course, visited the manse, 
not for an order on public charity, but for aid 
from private charity, and it was never refused 
in kind, such as meal, wool, or potatoes. As 
there were no lawyers in the parish, lawsuits 
were adjusted in the manse; and so were 
marriages not a few. The distressed came 
there for comfort, and the perplexed for ad- 
vice ; and there was always something mate- 
rial as well as spiritual to share with them all. 
Ho one went away empty in body or soul. 
Yqt the barrel of meal was never empty, nor 
the cruise of oil extinguished. A “ wise” 
neighbor once remarked, “ that minister with 
his large family will ruin himself, and if he 
dies they will be beggars.” Yet there has 
never been a beggar among them to the fourth 


42 


A Highland Parish. 


generation. No “ saying” was more common 
in tlie mouth of this servant than the saying 
of his Master, “It is more blessed to give than 
to receive.” 

One characteristic of that manse life was 
its constant cheerfulness. One cottager 
could play the bagpipe, another the violin. 
The minister was an excellent performer on 
the violin. If strangers were present, so 
much the better. Tie had not an atom of 
that proud fanaticism which connects virtue 
with suffering, as suffering, apart from its 
cause.* 

Here is an extract from a letter written 


* A minister in a remote island parish once informed 
me that, “ on religious grounds,” he had broken the only 
fiddle in the island ! His notion of religion, we fear, is 
not rare among his brethren in the far west and north. 
We are informed by Mr. Campbell, in his admirable vol- 
umes on the Tales of the Highlands, that the old songs 
and tales are also being put under the clerical ban in 
some districts, as being too secular and profane for their 
pious inhabitants. What next ? Are the singing-birds 
to be shot by the kirk-sessions ? 


The Manse. 


43 


by the minister in liis old age, some fifty 
years ago, which gives a very beautiful pic- 
ture of the secluded manse and its ongoings. 
It is written at the beginning of a new year, 
in feply to one which he had received from 
his first-born son, then a minister of the 
Church : — 

“Wliat you say about the beginning of 
another year is quite true. But, after all, 
may not the same observations apply equally 
well to every new day ? Ought not daily mer- 
cies to be acknowledged, and God’s favor and 
protection asked for every new day ? and are 
we not as ignorant of what a new day as of 
what a new year may bring forth ? There is 
nothing in nature to make this day in itself 
more worthy of attention than any other. 
The sun rises and sets on it as on other days, 
and the sea ebbs and flows. Some come into 
the world and^some leave it, as they did yes- 
terday and will do to-morrow. On wliat- day 
may not one say, I am a year older than I was 
this day last year? Still I must own that 
the first of the year speaks to me in a more 


44 


A Highland Parish. 


commanding and serious language tlian any 
other common day; and the great clock ot 
time, which announced the first hour of this 
year, did not strike unnoticed by us. 

“ The sound was too loud to be unheard, 
and too solemn to pass away unheeded. We 
in the manse did not mark the day by any 
unreasonable merriment. We were alone, 
and did eat and drink with our usual inno- 
cent and cheerful moderation. I began the 
year by gathering all in the house and on 
the glebe to prayer. Our souls were stirred 
up to bless and to praise the Lord : for what 
more reasonable, what more delightful duty 
than to show forth our gratitude and thank- 
fulness to that great and bountiful God from 
whom we have our years, and days, and all 
our comforts and enjoyments. Our lives 
have been spared till now ; our state and con- 
ditions in life have been blessed ; our tem- 
poral concerns have been favored ; the bless- 
ing of God co-operated with our honest indus- 
try ; our spiritual advantages have been great 
and numberless ; we have had the means oi 


The Manse. 


45 


grace and the hope of glory ; in a word, we 
have had all that was requisite for the good 
of our body and soul ; and shall not our souls 
and all that is within, us, all our powers and 
faculties, be stirred up to bless and praise His 
name ! 

“ But to return. This pleasant duty being 
gone through, refreshments were brought in, 
and had any of your clergy seen the crowd 
(say thirty, great and small, besides the 
family of the manse) they would pity the 
man who, under God, had to support them 
all ! This little congregation being dismissed, 
they went to enjoy themselves. They enter- 
tained each other by turns. In the evening, 
I gave them one end of the house. W e enjoyed 
ourselves in a different manner in the other 
end. Had you popped in unnoticed, you 
would see us all grave, quiet, and studious. 
You would see your father reading The Sea- 
sons ; your mother, Porteous’ Lectures ; your 
sister Anne, The Lady of the Lake; and 
Archy, Tom Thumb! 

“ Your wee son was a new and great treat 


4 6 


A Highland Parish. 


to you in those bonny days of rational mirth 
and joy, blit not a whit more so than you 
were to me at his time of life, nor can he be 
more so during the years to come. May the 
young gentleman long live to bless and com- 
fort you ! May he be to you what you have 
been and are to me ! I am the last that can 
honestly recommend to you not to allow him 
get too strong a hold of your heart, or rather 
not to allow yourself to dote too much upon 
him. This was a peculiar weakness of my 
own, and of which I had cause more than 
once to repent with much grief and sore 
affliction. But your mother’s creed always 
was ( and truly she has acted up to it) to enjoy 
and delight in the blessings of the Almighty 
while they were spared to her, with a thank- 
ful and grateful heart, and to part with them 
when it w r as the will of the gracious Giver to 
remove them, with humble submission and 
meek resignation.” 

We will have something more to say in a 
coming chapter about this pastor and his 
work in the parish. 



III. 


The Boys of the Manse. 

“ Life went a-maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy 
When I was young ! 

When I was young ? — Ah ! woful when ? ” 

COLERIDGE. 

T HE old minister had no money to leave his 
hoys when he died, and so he wisely de- 
termined to give them while he lived, the 
treasure of the best education in his power. 
The first thing necessary for the. accomplish- 
ment of his object, was to obtain a good tutor, 
and a good tutor was not difficult to get. 

James, as we shall call the tutor of the 
manse boys, was a laborious student, with a 
most creditable amount of knowledge of the 
elements of Greek and Latin. When at col- 
lege he was obliged to live in the top storey 


4 8 


A Highland Parish. 


of a liigh house in a murky street, breathing 
an atmosphere of smoke, fog, and gas ; 
cribbed in a hot, close room ; feeding on ill- 
cooked meat (fortunately in small quantities) ; 
drinking “ coffee” half water, half chicory ; 
sitting up long after midnight writing essays 
or manufacturing exercises, until at last dys- 
pepsia depressed his spirits and blanched his 
visage, except where it was colored by a hec- 
tic flush, which deepened after a fit of cough- 
ing. When he returned home after having 
carried off prizes in the Greek or Latin 
classes, what cared his mother for all these 
honors ? Ho doubt she was “ prood oor 
James,” but yet she could hardly know her 
boy, he had become so pale, so haggard, and 
so unlike “ himseP.” What a blessing for 
James to get off to the Highlands ! lie there 
breathed such air, and drank such water as 
made him wonder at the bounty of creation 
without taxation. He climbed the hills and 
dived into the glens, and rolled himself on the 
heather ; visited old castles, learned to fish, 
and perhaps to shoot, shutting both eyes at 























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Highlands 


The Manse Boys Fishing 


P 


48 







The Manse Boys. 


49 


first when he pulled the trigger.' He began 
to write verses, and to fall in love with one 
or all of the young ladies. That was the sort 
of life which Tom Campbell the poet passed 
when sojourning in the West Highlands ; ay, 
for a time in this very parish too, where the 
lovely spot is yet pointed out as the scene of 
his solitary musings. James had a great de- 
light not only in imparting the rudiments of 
language, but also in opening up various high 
roads and outlying fields of knowledge. The 
intellectual exercise braced himself, and de- 
lighted his pupils. 

If ever “ muscular Christianity” was taught 
to the rising generation, the Highland manse 
of these days was its gymnasium. After 
school hours, and on “ play-days” and Satur- 
days, there w r as no want of employment cal- 
culated to develop physical energy. The 
glebe and farm made a constant demand for 
labor, which it was joy to the boys to afford. 
Every season brought its own appropriate 
and interesting work. But sheep-clipping, 
the reaping and ingathering of the crops, with 


5 ° 


A Highland Parish. 


now and then the extra glory of a country 
market for- the purchase and sale of cattle ; 
with tents, games, gingerbread, horse jockeys, 
and English cattle dealers, — these were their 
great annual feasts. 

The grander branches of education were 
fishing, sailing, shooting, — game-laws being 
then unknown — and also what was called 
“hunting.” The fishing I speak of was not 
with line and fly on river or lake, though 
that was in abundance ; but it was sea-fisliino* 
with rod and white fly for “ Saith” and mack- 
erel in their season. It was delightful towards 
evening to pull for miles to the fishing-ground 
in company with other boats. A race was 
sure to be kept up both going and returning, 
while songs arose from all hands and from 
every boat, intensifying the energy of* the 
rowers. Then there was the excitement of 
getting among a great play of fish, which 
made the water foam for half a mile round, 
and attracted flocks of screaming birds who 
seemed mad with gluttony, while six or seven 
rods had all at the same time their lines 


The Manse Boys. 


51 


tight, and tlieir ends bent to cracking with 
the sport ; keeping every fisher hard at work 
pulling in the line lithe creatures, until the 
bottom of the boat was filled with scores. 
Sometimes the sport was so good as to in- 
duce a number of boats’ crews to remain all 
night on a distant island, which had only a 
few sheep, and a tiny spring of water. The 
boats were made fast on the lee side, and 
their crews landed to wait for daybreak. 
Then began the fun and frolic ! — “ sky-lark- 
ing,” as the sailors called it, among the 
rocks— pelting one another with clods and 
wrack, or any harmless substance which 
could be collected for the battle, amidst 
shouts of laughter, until they were wearied, 
and lay down to sleep in a sheltered nook, 
and all was silent but the beating w T ave, the 
“eerie” cries of birds, and the splash of some 
sea-monster in pursuit of its prey. What 
glorious reminiscences have I, too, of those 
scenes, and specially of early morn, as 
watched from those green islands ! It seems 
to me as if I had never beheld a true sunrise 


5 2 


A Highland Parish. 


since ; yet how many have I witnessed ! I 
left the sleeping crews, and ascended the top 
of the rock, immediately before daybreak, 
and what a sight it was, to behold the golden 
crowns which the snn placed on the brows of 
the monntain-monarchs who first did him 
homage ; what heavenly dawnings of light 
on peak and scaur, contrasted with the dark- 
ness of the lower valleys ; what gleams of 
glory in the eastern sky, changing the cold, 
grey clouds of early morning into bars of 
gold and radiant gems of beauty ; and what 
a flood of light suddenly burst upon the 
dancing waves, as the sun rose above the 
horizon, and revealed the silent sails of pass- 
ing ships; and what delight to see and hear 
the first break of the fish on the waters! 
With what pleasure I descended, and gave 
the cheer which made every sleeper awake, 
and scramble to their boats, and in a few 
minutes resume the* work of hauling in our 
dozens ! Then home with a will for break- 
fast— each striving to be first on the sandy 
shore ! 


The Manse Boys. 


53 


% Ashing at night with the drag-net was a 
sport which cannot be omitted in recording 
the enjoyments of the manse-boys. The spot 
selected was a rocky bay, or embouchure of 
a small stream. The night was generally 
dark and calm. The pleasure of the occupa- 
tion was made up of the pull, often a long 
one, within the shadow of the rocky shore, 
with the calm sea reflecting the stars in the 
sky, and then the slow approach, with gen- 
tly-moving oars, towards the beach, in order 
not to disturb the fish ; the wading up to the 
middle to draw in the net when it had en- 
circled its prey ; and the excitement as it 
was brought into shallow water, the fish 
shining with their phosphoric light ; until, at 
last, a grand haul of salmon-trout, flounders, 
small cod, and lithe, lay walloping in the 
folds of the net upon the sandy beach. 

Those fishing excursions, full of incident 
as they were, did not fully test or develop 
the powers of the boys. But others were 
afforded capable of doing so. It Was their 
delight to accompany their father on any 


54 


A Highland Parish. 


boat-journey which the discharge of liis pas--* 
toral duties required. In favorable weather, 
they had - often to manage the boat them- 
selves without any assistance. When the sky 
was gloomy, old Rory took the command. 
Such of my readers as have had the happi- 
ness — or the horror, as their respective tastes 
may determine — to have sailed among the 
Hebrides in an open boat, will be disposed 
to admit that it is a rare school for disciplin- 
ing its pupils when patient and conscientious 
to habits of endurance, foresight, courage, 
decision, and calm self-possession. The min- 
ister’s boat was about eighteen feet keel, 
undecked, and rigged fore and aft. There 
were few days in which the little “ Roe ” 
would not venture out, with Rory at the 
helm ; and with no other person would his 
master divide the honor of being the most 
famous steersman in those waters. Rut to 
navigate her across the wild seas of that 
stormy coast demanded “a fine hand” 
which could only be acquired after years 
of constant practice, such as a rider -for the 


The Manse Boys. 


55 


Derby prides in, or a whipper-in during a 
long run across a stiff country. If Rory 
would have made a poor jockey, what jockey 
would have steered the “ Roe” in a gale of 
wind? I can assiflre the reader it was a 
solemn business, arid solemnly was it gone 
about ! What care in seeing the ropes in 
order ; the sails reefed ; the boys in their 
right place at the fore and stern sheets ; and 
everything made snug. And what a sight 
it was to see that old man when the 
storm was fiercest, with his one eye, under 
its shaggy grey brow, looking to windward, 
sharp, calm, and luminous as a spark; his 
hand clutching the tiller — never speaking a 
word, and displeased if any other broke the 
silence, except the minister who sat beside 
him, assigning this post of honor as a great 
favor to Rory, during the trying hour. That 
hour was generally when wind and tide met, 
and “gurly grey/ the sea,” whose green 
waves rose with crested heads, hanging 
against the cloud-rack, and sometimes con- 
cealing the land ; while black sudden squalls 


56 


A Highland Parish. 


rushing down from the glens, struck the 
foaming billows in fury, and smote the boat, 
threatening, with a sharp scream, to tear the 
tiny sails in tatters, break the mast, or blow 
out of the water the small dark speck that 
carried the manse treasures. There was one 
moment of peculiar difficulty and concen- 
trated danger when the hand of a master 
was needed to save them. The boat has en- 
tered the worst part of the tideway. How 
ugly it looks ! Three seas higher than the 
rest are coming ; and you can see the squall 
blowing their white crests into smoke. In 
a few minutes they will be' down on the 
“ Roe.” “ Look out, Rauri !” whispers the 
minister. “ Stand by the sheets !” cries Rory 
to the boys, who, seated on the ballast, gaze 
on him like statues, watching his face, and 
eagerly listening in silence. “ Ready 1” is 
their only reply. Down come the seas, roll- 
ing, rising, breaking; falling, rising again, 
and looking higher and fiercer than ever. 
The tide is running like a race-horse, and the 
gale meets it ; and these three seas appear 


The Manse Boys. 


57 


now to rise like huge pyramids of green 
water, dashing their foam up into the sky. 
Hie first may be encountered and overcome, 
for the boat has good way upon her ; but the 
others will rapidly follow up the thundering 
charge and shock, and a single false move- 
ment of the helm by a liair’s-breadth will 
bring down a cataract like Niagara that 
would shake a frigate, and sink the “-Roe” 
into the depths like a stone. The boat meets 
the first wave, and rises dry over it. “ Slack 
out the main sheet, quick, and hold hard ; 
there — steady !” commands Rory, in a low, 
firm voice, and the huge back of the second 
wave is seen breaking to leeward. “ Haul 
in, boys, and belay 1” Quick as lightning 
the little craft, having again gathered wind, 
is up in the teeth of the wind, and soon is 
spinning over the third topper, not a drop of 
water having come over the lee gunwale. 
“ Nobly done, Rory !” exclaims the minister, 
as he looks back to the fierce tideway which 
they have passed. Rory smiles with satisfac- 
tion at his own skill, and quietly remarks of 


58 


A Highland Parish. 


tlie big waves, “ They have their road, and I 
have mine ! ” u Hurrah for the old boat ! ” 
.exclaims one of the boys. Rory repeats his 
favorite aphorism — yet never taking his eye 
off the sea and sky — a Depend on it, my lads, 
it is not boats that drown the men, but men 
the boats !” I take it that the old “ Roe ” 
was no bad school for boys who had to battle 
with the storms and tides of life. I have 
heard one of those boys tell, when old and 
greyheaded, and after having encountered 
many a life storm, how much he had owed to 
those habits of mind which had been strength- 
ened by his sea life with old Rory. 

The “ hunting ” I have alluded to as afford- 
ing another branch of out-door schooling, was 
very different from what goes under that 
sporting term in the south. It was confined 
chiefly to wild cats and otters. The animals 
employed in this work were terriers. The 
two terriers of the manse were “ Gasgach ” 
or “ Hero,” and “ Cuilag ” or “ Fly.” They 
differed very considerably in character : Gas- 
gach was a large terrier with wiry black and 


The Manse Boys. 


59 


grey hairs ; Cuilag was of a dusky brown, 
and so small that she could be carried in the 
pocket of a shooting jacket. Gasgacli pre- 
sumed not to enter the parlor, or to mingle 
with genteel society; Cuilag always did so, 
and lay upon the hearth-rug, where she 
basked and reposed in state. Gasgacli was a 
sagacious, prudent, honest police sergeant, 
who watched the house day and night, and 
kept the farm-dogs in awe, and at their re- 
spective posts. lie was also a wonderful de- 
tective of all beggars, rats, fumarts, wild 
cats, and vermin of every kind, smelling afar 
off the battle wdtli man or beast. Cuilag w T as 
full of reticence , and seemed to think of no- 
thing, or do nothing until seriously wanted ; 
and then indomitable courage started from 
every hair in her body. Both had seen con- 
stant service since their puppyhood, and 
were covered with honorable scars from the 
nose to the tip of the tail ; each cut being ih$ 
record of a battle, and the subject of a story 
by the boys. 

The otters in the parish were both numer- 


6o 


A Highland Parish. 


ous, iarge, and fierce. There was one fa- 
mous den called “ Clachoran,” or the otter’s 
stone, composed of huge rocks, from which 
the sea wholly receded during spring-tides. 
Then was the time to search for its inhab- 
itants. This was done by the terriers driv- 
ing the otter out, that he might be shot 
while making his way across a few yards of 
stone and tangle to the sea. I have known 
nine killed in this one den in a single year. 
But sometimes the otter occupied a den a few 
hundred yards inland, where a desperate 
fight ensued between him and the dogs. 
Long before the den was reached, the dogs 
became nervous and impatient, whining, and 
glancing up to the face of their master, and, 
with anxious look, springing up and licking 
his hands. To let them off until quite close 
to the den was sure to destroy the sport, as 
the otter would, on hearing them bark, make 
nt once for the sea. Gasgacli could, without 
difficulty, be kept in the rear, but little 
Cuilag, conscious of her moral weakness to 
resist temptation, begged to be carried. 


The Manse Boys. 


6t 


Though she made no struggle to escape, yet 
she trembled with eagerness, as, with cocked 
ears and low cry, she looked out for the spot 
where she and Gasgach would be set at liberty. 
That spot reached — what a hurry-scurry, as 
off they rushed to the den, and sprang in ! 
Gasga cli’s short bark was a certain sign that 
the enemy was there ; it was the first shot 
in the battle. If Cuilag followed, the battle 
had begun. One of the last great battles 
fought by Cuilag was in that inland den. 
On gazing down between two rocks which 
below met at an angle, there, amidst fierce 
barkings and the muffled sound of a fierce 
combat, Cuilag’s head and the head of a 
huge otter, were seen alternately appearing, 
as the one tried to seize the throat, and the 
other to inflict a wound on his little antago- 
nist. At last Cuilag made a spring, and 
seized hold of the otter about the nose or lip. 
A shepherd who was present, fearing the 
dog would be cut to pieces, since the den 
was too narrow to admit Gasgach (who 
seemed half apoplectic with passion and in a- 


62 


A Highland Parish. 


bility to force liis way in), managed, by a 
great effort, to get bold of the otter’s tail, 
and to drag him upwards through a hole 
like a chimney. The shepherd was terrified 
that the otter, when it got its head out, 
would turn upon him and bite him, — and 
such a bite as those beautiful teeth can give ! 
- — but to his astonishment, the brute 
appeared with Cuilag hanging to the upper 
lip. Both being flung on the grass, Gasgach 
came to the rescue, and very soon, with 
some aid from the boys, the animal of fish 
and fur w T as killed and brought in triumph 
to the manse. 

There is a true story about Cuilag which 
is worth recording. The minister, accom- 
panied by Cuilag, went to visit a friend, who 
lived sixty miles off in a direct line from the 
manse. To reach him he had to cross sev- 
eral wild hills, and five arms of the sea or 
freshwater lochs stretching for miles. The 
dog, oil arriving at her destination, took her 
place, according to custom, on the friend’s 
hearthrug, from which, however, she was 


The Manse Boys. 


6 3 

ignominiously driven by a servant, and sent 
to the kitchen. Slie disappeared, and left 
no trace of her whereabouts. One evening, 
about a fortnight afterwards, little Cuilao- 
entered the manse parlor, worn down to 
a skeleton, her paws cut and swollen, and 
she hardly able to crawl to her master, or 
to express her joy at meeting all her dear 
old friends once more. Strange to say, she 
was accompanied into the room by Gasgach, 
who, after frolicking about, seemed to apolo- 
gize for the liberty he took, and bolted out 
to bark over the glebe, and tell the other 
dogs who had gathered round what had hap- 
pened. How did Cuilag discover the way • 
home sinc.e she had never visited that part 
of the country before? How did she go 
round the right ends of the lochs, which had 
been all crossed by boat on their journey, 
and then recover her track, travelling twice 
or thrice sixty miles ? How did she live ? 
These were questions which no one could 
answer, seeing Cuilag was silent. She 
never, however, recovered that two weeks’ 


6 4 


A Highland Parish. 


wilderness journey. Her speed was ever 
after less swift, and lier gripe less firm. 

The games of the hoys were all athletic, 
• — throwing the hammer, putting the stone, 
leaping, and the like. Perhaps the most 
favorite game was the “ shinty,’’ called 
hooky, I believe, in England. This is played 
by any number of persons, 100 often engag- 
in it. Each has a stick bent at the end, 
and made short or long,, as it is to be used 
by one or both hands. The largest and 
smoothest field that can be found is selected 
for the game. The combat lies in the at- 
tempt of each party to knock a small wooden 
ball beyond a certain boundary in his oppo- 
nent’s ground. The ball is struck by any 
one on either side wdio can get at it. Eew 
games are - more exciting, or demand 
more physical exertion than a good shinty 
match. 

1 have said nothing regarding a matter of 
more importance than anything touched 
upon in this chapter, and that is the relig- 
ions education of the manse boys. But 


The Manse Boys. 


6 S 

there was nothing so peculiar about it as to 
demand special notice. It was very real 
and genuine ; and perhaps its most distin- 
guishing feature was, that instead of being 
confined to “ tasks,” and hard, dry, starched 
Sundays only, it was spread over all the 
week, and consisted chiefly in develop- 
ing the domestic affections by a frank, lov- 
ing, sympathizing intercourse between pa- 
rents and children ; by making home happy 
to the u bairns by training them up wisely 
and with tact , to reverence truth , — truth in 
word, in deed, and manner ; and to practise 
unselfishness and courteous considerateness 
towards the wants and feelings of others. 
These and many other minor lessons were 
never separated from Jesus Christ, the 
source of all life. They were taught to 
know him as the Saviour, through whose 
atonement their sins were pardoned, and 
through whose grace alone, obtained daily 
in prayer, they could be made like himself. 
The teaching was real , and was felt by the 
boys to be like sunshine on dew, warming, 


66 


A Highland Parish. 


refreshing, and quickening their young 
hearts ; and not like a something forced into 
the mind, with which it had no sympathy, as 
a leaden hall is rammed down into a gun- 
barrel. Once I heard an elderly Highland 
gentleman say that the first impression he 
ever received of the reality of religion w T as 
in connexion with the first death which oc- 
curred among the manse boys. 

Heed I add, in conclusion, that the manse 
was a perfect paradise for a boy during his 
holidays ! Oh, let no anxious mother inter- 
fere at such times with loving grandmother 
and loving aunts or uncles ! Ho doubt there 
is a danger that the boy may be “ spoilt.” 
In spite of the Latin or Greek lessons which 
his grandpapa or the tutor delights to 
give him in the morning, his excellent 
parents write to say that “ too much idleness 
may injure him.” Hot a bit ! The boy is 
drinking in love with every drink of warm 
milk given him by the Highland dairymaid, 
and with every look, and kiss, and gentle 
hug given him by his dear grannie or aunts. 


The Manse Boys. 

Education, if it is worth anything, draws out 
as much as it puts in ; and this sort of educa- 
tion will strengthen his brain and brace his 
nerves for the work of the town grammar- 
school, to which he must soon return. “ It 
does not do to pamper him too much, it may 
make him selfish,” also write his parents. 
Quite true as an educational axiom ; but his 
grandmother denies— bless her for it, dear, 
good woman ! — that giving him milk or 
cream ad libitum , with u scones” and cheese 
at all hours, is pampering him. And his 
aunts take him on their knee, and fondle 
him, and tell stories, and sit beside him when 
he is in bed, and sing songs to him ; and 
there is not a herd or shepherd but wishes 
to make him happy ; and old Rory has him 
always beside him in the boat, and gives him 
the helm, and, in spite of the old hand hold- 
ing the tiller behind the young one, per- 
suades his “ darling,” as he calls him, that it is 
he, the boy, who steers the boat. Oh ! sun- 
shine of youth, let it shine on ! Let love 
flow out fresh and full, unchecked by any 


68 


A Highland Parish. 


rule but what love creates ; pour thyself 
down without stint into the young heart ; 
make his days of boyhood happy, for other 
days must come of labor and of sorrow, 
when the memory of those dear eyes, and 
clasping hands, and sweet caressings, will, 
next to the love of God from whence they 
flow, save the man from losing faith in the 
human heart, help to deliver him from the 
curse of selfishness, and be an Eden in his 
memory, when driven forth into the wilder- 
ness of life 1 





IV. 

The Manse Girls. 


“ Dost thou remember all those happy meetings 
In summer evenings round the open door ; 

Kind looks, kind words, and tender greetings 
From clasping hands, whose pulses beat no more — 
Dost thou remember them ?” 

T HE manse girls were many. They 
formed a large family, a numerous flock, 
a considerable congregation ; or, as the min- 
ister expressed it in less exaggerated terms, 
“ a heavy handful.” One part of their edu- 
cation, as I have already noticed, was con- 
ducted by a governess. The said governess 
was the daughter of a “ governor,” or com- 
mandant of one of the Highland forts — whe- 
ther Fort- Augustus or Fort- Willi am I remem- 
ber not — where he had for years reigned 



7 o 


A Highland Parish. 


over a dozen rusty guns, and half as many 
soldiers, with all the dignity of a man who 
was supposed to guard the great Southern 
land against the outbreaks and incursions of 
the wild Highland clans, although, in truth, 
the said Highland clans had been long asleep 
in the old kirkyard •“ amang the heather,” for 
as the song hath it, 

“ No more we’ll see such deeds again, 

Deserted is the Highland glen, 

And mossy cairns are o’er the men, 

Who fought and died for Charlie.” 

The “ major ” — for the commandant had 
attained that rank in the first American war 
— left an only daughter who was small and 
dumpy in stature, had no money, and but 
one leg. Yet was she most richly provided 
for otherwise with every womanly quality, 
and the power of training girls in u all the 
branches” then considered most useful for 
sensible well-to-do women and wives. She 
was not an outsider in the family, or a mere 
teaching machine, used and valued like a mill 


The Manse Girls. 


71 


or plough for the work done, hut a member 
of the household, loved and respected for her 
own sake. She was so dutiful and kind that 
the heat of her wooden leg on the wooden 
stair became musical — a very beating of time 
with all that was best and happiest in her pu- 
pils’ hearts. She remained for some time 
educating the younger girls, until a batch of 
boys broke the line of feminine succession, 
and then she retired for a time to teach one 
or more families in the neighborhood. But 
no sooner was the equilibrium of the manse 
restoredby another set of girls, than the lit- 
tle governess returned to ■ber old quarters, 
and once more stumped through the school- 
room, with her happy face, wise tongue, and 
cunning band. 

The education of the manse girls was nei- 
ther learned nor fashionable. They were 
taught neither French nor German, music 
nor drawing, while dancing as an art was out 
of the question, with the wooden leg as the 
only artist to teach it. The girls, however, 
were excellent readers, writers, and arithme- 


72 


A Highland Parish. 


ticians ; and they could sew, knit, shape 
clothes, and patch to perfection. I need 
hardly say that they were their own and 
their mother’s only dressmakers, and mani- 
fested wonderful skill and taste in making; 
old things look new, and in so changing the 
cut and fashion of the purchases made long 
ago from the packman, that Mary’s “everlas- 
ting silk,” or J ane’s merino, seemed capable 
of endless transformations ; while their bon- 
nets, by judicious turning, trimming, and 
tasteful placing of a little bit of ribbon 
looked always fresh and new. 

Contrasted with an expensive and fashion- 
able education, theirs will appear to have 
been poor and vulgar. Yet in the long 
course of years, I am not sure but the manse 
girls had the best of it. For one often won 
ders what becomes of all this fashionable ed- 
ucation in the future life of the young lady. 
What French or German books does she 
read as a maid or matron? With whom 
does she, or can she, converse in these lan- 
guages ? Where is her drawing beyond the 


The Manse Girls. 


73 


Madonna’s heads and the Swiss landscape 
which she brought from school, touched up 
by the master ? What music does she love 
and practise for the sake of its own beauty, 
and not for the sake of adding to the hum of 
the drawing-room after dinner ? The manse 
girls could read and speak two languages, at 
least — Gaelic and English. They could 
sing, too, their own Highland ditties : wild, 
but yet as musical as mountain streams and 
summer winds ; sweet and melodious as song 
of thrush or blackbird in spring, going right 
to the heart of the listener, and from his 
heart to his brimming eyes. And so I am 
ready to back the education of the poor 
manse against that of many a rich and fash- 
ionable mansion, not only as regards the 
ordinary “ branches,” but much more as 
developing the mental powers of the girls. 
At all events they acquired habits of reflec- 
tive observation, with a capacity of 
thoroughly relishing books, enjoying Nature 
in all her varying scenes and moods, and of 
expressing their own thoughts and senti- 


74 A Highland Parish. 

ments with such a freshness and force as 
made them most delightful members of so- 
ciety. A fashionable education, on the 
other hand, is often a mere tying on to a 
tree of a number of “ branches ” without life, 
instead of being a developing of the tree 
itself, so that it shall bear its own branches 
loaded with beautiful flowers and clustering 
fruit. 

But the manse school included more 
rooms than the little attic where the girls 
met around that familiar knot of wood 
which projected from beneath the neat calico 
of the major’s daughter. The cheerful 
society of the house ; the love of kindred, — 
each heart being as a clear spring that sent 
forth its stream of affection with equable 
flow to refresh others ; the innumerable re- 
quirements of the glebe and farm ; the spin- 
ning and shearing ; the work in the laundry, 
the kitchen, and the dairy • the glorious out- 
door exercise over field and moor, in the 
glens or by the shore ; the ministrations of 
charity, not with its doled-out alms to beg- 


The Manse Girls. 


75 


gars only, but with its a kind words and 
looks and tender greetings” to the many cot- 
tagers around, — these all were teachers in 
the Home School. And thus, partly from 
circumstances, partly, it must be acknow- 
ledged, from rare gifts of God bestowed upon 
them, they all grew up with a purity, a 
truthfulness, a love and gladness, which 
made the atmosphere of the manse one of 
constant sunshine. Each had her own 
strong individual character, like trees which 
grow free on the mountain side. They 
delighted in books, and read them with head 
and heart, undisturbed by the slang and one- 
sided judgments of hack critics. And it 
occasionally happened that some Southern 
friend, who in his wanderings through the 
Highlands enjoyed the hospitality of the 
manse, sent the girls a new volume of 
pleasant literature as a remembrance of his 
visit. These gifts were much valued, and 
read as volumes are seldom read now-a-days, 
Books of good poetry especially were so 


;6 


A Highland Parish. 


often conned by them that they became as 
portions of their own thoughts. 

The manse girls did not look upon life as 
a vain show, aimless and purposeless ; upon 
everything and every person as “ a bore 
or upon themselves as an insupportable bur- 
den to parents and to brothers, — unless they 
got husbands ! Choice wives they would 
have made, for both their minds and bodies 
had attractions not a few ; and “ good offers,” 
as they were called, came to them as to 
others. Young men had been “daft” 
about them, aud they were too sensible and 
womanly not to wish for a home they could 
call their own ; yet it never crossed their 
thoughts that they must marry, just as one 
must get a pair of shoes. They never im- 
agined that it was possible for any girl of 
principle and feeling to marry a man whom 
she did not love, merely because he had a 
number of sheep and cattle in a Highland 
farm ; or had good prospects from selling tea 
and sugar in Grlasgow , or had a parish as a 
minister, or a property as a “ laird.” Poor 


The Manse Girls. 


77 


foolish creatures were they not, to think so ? 
without one farthing they could call their 
own ; with no prospects from their father, the 
minister ; with no possessions save what he 
had last purchased for them from the pack- 
man f What on earth would come of them 
or of their mother if the parson was 
drowned some stormy night with Ruari 
and “ the Roe?” Were they to he cast on 
the tender mercies of this or that brother 
who had a home over their heads ? What ? 
a brother to afford shelter to a sister! Or 
could they seriously intend to trust Prov- 
idence for the future, if they only did His 
will for the present ? Better far, surely, to 
accept the first good offer; snatch at the 
woolly hand of the large sheep farmer, the 
sweet hand of the rich grocer, the thin, 
sermon- writing hand of the preacher ; nay, 
let them take their chance even with James, 
the tutor, who has been sighing over each of 
them in turn ! But no; like “ fools,” they 
took for granted that it never could come 
wrong in the end to do what was right at 


78 A Highland Parish. 

the time, and so they never thought it to be 
absolutely incumbent on them to “marry 
for marrying sake.” Neither father nor 
mother questioned the propriety of their 
conduct. And thus it came to pass that 
none of them, save one, who loved # most 
heroically and most truly unto death, ever 
married. The others became what married 
ladies and young expectants of that life- 
climax call — Old Maids. But many a fire- 
side, and many a nephew and niece, with 
the children of a second generation, blessed 
God for them as precious gifts. 

I feel that no apology is required for 
quoting the following extract from a letter 
written by the pastor, more than sixty years 
ao-o, when some of the eldest of the manse 
girls left home for the first time. It will 
find, I doubt not, a response in the heart of 
many a pastor in similar circumstances : — 

“ It was, my dear, my very dear girls, at 
seven in the morning of Thursday, the 31st 
August, you took your departure from the 
old quay — that quay where I often landed 


The Manse Girls. 


79 


in foul and fair weather, at night and by 
day ; my heart always jumping before me, 
anticipating the happiness of joining the de- 
lightful group that formed my fireside, — a 
group I may never see collected again. 
How happy the parents, the fewest in num- 
ber, who can have their families within their 
reach ! happier still, when, like you, their 
families are to them a delight and comfort ! 

You left the well-known shores of , and 

your parents returned with heavy steps, the 
weight of their thoughts making their ascent 
to the manse much slower and harder to ac- 
complish than ever they found it before. 
We sat on the hill-side bathed in tears, edv- 
ing many a kind and longing look to the 
wherry, which always went further from us, 
till our dim eyes, wearied of their exertions, 
could see nothing in its true state ; when, 
behold, cruel Castle Duart interrupted our 
view, and took out of our sight the boat 
that carried from us so much of our worldly 
treasure. Our thousand blessings be with 
our dear ones, we cried, and returned to the 


8o 


A Highland Parish. 


house, — to the manse of ; a house 

where much comfort and happiness were 
always to be found ; where the friend was 
friendly treated, and where the stranger 
found himself at home ; where the distressed 
and the needy met with pity and kindness, 
and the beggar never went off without being 
supplied ; where the story and the joke often 
cheered the well-pleased guests, and were 
often accompanied with the dance and the 
song, and all with an uncommon degree of 
elegance, cheerfulness, and good humor. 
But with me these wonted scenes of merri- 
ment are now over. The violin and the song 
have no charms for me ; and the cheerful 
tale delights no more. But hold, minister ! 
what mean you by these gloomy thoughts ? 
"Why disturb for a moment the happiness of 
the dear things you write to, and for whose 
happiness you so earnestly pray, by casting a 
damp upon their gay and merry hours? 
Cease, foolish, and tempt not Providence to 
afflict you ! What ! have you not many com- 
forts to make you happy ? Is not the friend 


The Manse Girls. 


81 


of your bosom, the loving dutiful wife, and 
the loving dutiful mother, alive to bless and 
to comfort you ? Is not your family, though 
somewhat scattered, all alive? Are they 
not all good and promising ? None of them 
ever yet caused you to blush ; and are not 
these great blessings? and are they not 
worthy of your most cheerful and grateful 
acknowledgements? They are, they are, 
and I bless God for the goodness. But the 
thought — I cannot provide for these ! Take 
care, minister, that the anxiety of your 
affection does not unhinge that confidence 
with which the Christian ought to repose 
upon the wise and good providence of God ! 
What though you are to leave your children 
poor and friendless ? Is the arm of the Lord 
shortened that he cannot help ? is his ear 
heavy that he cannot hear? You yourself 
have been no more than an instrument in 
the hand of his goodness ; and is his good- 
ness, pray, bound up in your feeble arm? 
Do you what you can ; leave the rest to God. 
Let them be good, and fear the Lord, and 


82 


A Highland Parish. 


keep the commandants, and he will provide 
for them in his own way and in his time. 
Why then wilt thou he cast down, O my soul ; 
why disquieted within me ? Trust thou in 
the Lord ! Under all the changes and the 
cares and the troubles of this life, may the 
consolations of religion support our spirits. 
In the multitude of the thoughts within me, 
thy comforts, O my God, delight my soul ! 
But no more of this preaching-like harangue, 
of which, I doubt not, you wish to be 
relieved. Let me rather reply to your letter, 
and tell you my news.” 

It was after this period that he had to 
mourn the loss of many of his family. And 
then began for the manse-girls the education 
within the school of sickness and death, 
whose door is shut against the intrusion of 
the noisy world, and into which no one can 
enter, except the Father of all, and “ the 
Friend who sticketli closer than a brother.” 

The first break in a family is a solemn and 
affecting era in its history ; most of all when 
that family is “ all the world ” to its own 


The Manse Gills. 


83 


members. The very thought — so natural to 
others who have suffered — that this one who 
has been visited by disease can ever become 
dangerously ill — can ever die, is by them 
dismissed as a dreadful night-mare. Then 
follow “the hopes and fears that kindle 
hope, an undistinguishable throng the 
watchings which turn night into day, and 
day into night ; the sympathy of sorrow 
which makes each mourner hide from others 
the grief that in secret is breaking the heart ; 
the intense realization, at last for all that may 
be — ay, that must be — until the last hours 
come, and what these arc they alone know 
who have loved and lost. What a mighty 
change does this first death make in a family, 
when it is so united, that if one member suf- 
fers all suffer ! It changes everything. The 
old haunts by rock or stream can never be as 
they were ; old songs are hushed for years, 
and, if ever sung again, they are like wails 
for the dead ; every room in the house seems, 
for a time, tenanted more by the dead than 
by the living ; the books are theirs ; the seat 


A Highland Parish. 


in church is not empty, but occupied by 
them ; plans and purposes, family arrange- 
ments and prospects, all seem for a time so 
purposeless and useless. No one ever calcu- 
lated on this possibility ! The trial which 
has come verily seems “ strange.” Yet this 
is, under God, a holy and blessed education. 
Lessons are then taught, “ though as by 
fire,” which train all the scholars for a 
higher school. And if that old joyousness 
and hilarity pass away which belong to a 
world that seemed as if it could not change 
— like a very Eden before the fall — it is suc- 
ceeded by a deeper life ; a life of faith and 
hope which find their rest in the unchanging 
rather than the changing present. 

Such was a portion of the education which 
the pastor and his family received for many 
succeeding years in the old manse ; but its 
memory was ever accompanied by thanks- 
giving for the true, genuine Christian life 
and death of those who had died. I need 
hardly say that the girls, more than the other 
members of the family, shared these sorrows 


The Manse Girb. 


85 

and tliis discipline ; for whatever men can do 
in the storm of ocean or of battle, women are 
the ministering angels in the room of sick- 
ness and of suffering. 

Before I turn away from the manse girls, I 
must say something more of their little gov- 
erness. She lingered long about the manse, 
as a valued friend, when her services were 
no longer needed. But she resolved at last 
to attempt a school in the low country, and 
to stamp some uneducated spot with the 
impress of the wooden knob. Ere doing so, 
she confided to the minister a story told her 
by her father, the fort-commandant, about 
some link or other which bound him to the 
Argyle family. What that link precisely 
was, no history records. It may have been 
that her mother was a Campbell, or that the 
major had served in a regiment commanded 
by some member of that noble house, or had 
picked an Argyle out of the trenches of Ti- 
conderoga. Anyhow, the commandant 
fancied that his only daughter would find a 
crutch of support,, like many others, in “ the 


86 


A Highland Parish. 


Duke,” if be only knew the story. Never 
up to this time was the crutch needed ; hut 
needed it is now if she is to pursue her life- 
journey in peace. Why not tell the story 
then to the Duke? quoth the minister. 
Why not ? thoughtfully ruminated the little 
governess. And so they both entered the 
manse-study — a wonderful little sanctum 
of books and mss., with a stuffed otter and 
wild-cat, a gun, compass, coil of new rope, 
the flag of the “ Koe,” a print of the Duke of 
Argyle, and of several old divines and 
reformers, in wigs and ruffs. There the min- 
ister wrote out, with great care, a petition to 
the Duke for one of the very many kind 
charities, in the form of small annuities, 
which were dispensed by his grace. The 
governess determined to present it in person 
at Inverary. But the journey thither was 
then a very serious matter. To travel now- 
adays from London to any capital on the 
Continent is nothing to what that journey 
was. For it could only be done on horse- 
back, and by crossing several stormy ferries, 


The Manse Girls. 


87 


as wide as tlie Straits of Dover. The journey 
was at last, however, arranged in this way. 
There lived in one of the many cottages of 
the glebe, a man called “old Archy,” who 
had been a servant in the family of the 
pastor’s father-in-law. Archy had long ago 
accompanied, as guide and servant, the min- 
ister’s wife, when she went to Edinburgh for 
her education. Having been thus trained to 
foreign travel, and his fame established as a 
thoroughly-qualified courier , he was at once 
selected to accompany, on horse-back, the 
governess to Inverary. That excellent 
woman did not, from nervous anxiety, go to 
bed the night previous to her departure ; and 
she had labored for a fortnight to produce a 
new dress in which to appear worthily before 
the Duke. She had daily practised, more- 
over, the proper mode of address, and was 
miserable from the conviction that all would 
be ruined by her saying “ Sir,” instead of 
“ your Grace.” The minister tried to laugh 
her out of her fears, and to cheer her by the 
assurance that a better-hearted gentleman 


83 


A Highland Parish. 


lived not than the good Duke John; and 
that she must speak to him as she felt. She 
departed with her black trunk slung behind 
Archy ; and also with extraordinary supplies 
of cold fowls, mutton, ham, and cheese — not 
to speak of letters commendatory to every 
manse on the road. What farewells, and 
kissings, and waving of handkerchiefs, and 
drying of eyes, and gathering of servants and 
of dogs at the manse-door, as the governess 
rode off on the white horse, Archy following 
on the brown ! The proper arrangement of 
the wooden leg had been a great mechanical 
and sesthetic difficulty, but somehow the girls 
with a proper disposal of drapery, had made 
the whole thing apropos. Archy too, had 
patched up a saddle of wonderful structure 
for the occasion. 

Time passed, and in a fortnight, to the joy 
of the household, the white mare was seen 
coming over the hill, with the brown follow- 
ing ; and soon the governess was once more 
in the arms of her friends, and the trunk in 
those of Archy. Amidst a buzz of questions, 


The Manse Girls. 


89 

the story was soon told with much flutter and 
some weeping — how she had met the Duke 
near the castle ; how she had presented her 
petition, while she could not speak ; how his 
Grace had expressed his great regard for 
u his minister ;” and how next day, when she 
called by appointment, he signified his inten- 
tion of granting the annuity. “ It is like 
himself,” was the • minister’s only remark, 
while his eyes were fuller than usual as he 
congratulated the little governess on her 
success ; and gave many a compliment to old 
Archy for the manner in which he had 
guided the horses and their riders. The 
little governess taught her school for many 
years, and enjoyed her annuity till near 
ninety. During her last days, she experi- 
enced the personal kindness and tender 
goodness of the present “Argyles,” as she 
had long ago done of the former “ Argyles.” 




V. 

The Minister and his Work. 

“ A genuine priest, 

The shepherd of his flock : or, as a king 
Is styled, when most affectionately praised, 

The father of his people. Such is he ; 

And rich and poor, and young and old, rejoice 
Under his spiritual sway.” 

WojtDSWORTH. 

I N Dr. Macculloch’s “ Tour to tlie Highlands 
of Scotland,” we have the most perfect 
and eloquent descriptions of scenery ; but in 
Dr. Johnson’s, the truest yet most compli- 
mentary delineations of the character and 
manners of the people. The physical fea- 
tures of the country are, no doubt, abiding, 
while its social condition is constantly 
changing ; so that we can now-a-days more 
easily recognize the truth of the sketches by 


The Minister and his Work. 


91 


the former than by the latter tourist. Bat 
the minister of whom I write, and the man- 
ners of his time, belong to the era of 
Johnson, and not to that of Maccul- 
loch. 

There is something, by the way, peculiarly 
touching in that same tour of the old 
Doctor’s, when we remember the tastes and 
habits of the man, with the state of the 
country at the time in which he visited it. 
Unaccustomed to physical exercise, obese in 
person, and short-sighted in vision, he rode 
along execrable roads : and on a Highland 
shelty cautiously felt his way across inter- 
minable morasses. He had no means of 
navigating those stormy seas but an open 
boat, pulled by sturdy rowers, against wet- 
ting spray, or tacking from morning till 
night amidst squalls, rain, and turbulent 
tideways. He had to put up in wretched pot- 
houses, sleeping, as he did at Glenelg, “ on a 
bundle of hay, in his riding-coat ; while Mr. 
Boswell, being more delicate, laid himself in 
sheets, with hay over and above him, and lay 


92 


A Highland Parish. 


in linen like a gentleman.” In some of the 
best bouses, lie found but clay floors below, 
and peet-reek around, and nowhere did he 
And the luxuries ofliis own favorite London. 
Yet he never growls or expresses one word 
of discontent or peevishness. Whether this 
was owing to his having for the first time 
escaped the conventionalities of city life ; or 
to the fact of the Highlands being then the 
last stronghold of Jacobinism ; or to the 
honor and respect which was everywhere 
shown towards himself ; or, what is more 
probable, to the genial influence of fresh air 
and exercise upon his phlegmatic constitu- 
tion, banishing its “ bad humors,” — in what- 
ever way we may account for it, so it was, 
that he encountered every difficulty and dis- 
comfort with the greatest cheerfulness ; par- 
took of the fare given him and the hospi- 
tality afforded to him with hearty gratitude ; 
and has written about every class of the 
people with the generous courtesy of a well- 
bred English gentleman. 

His opinion of the Highland clergy is not 


The Minister and his Work. 


93 


the least remarkable of liis “testimonies,” 
considering his intense love of Episcopacy, 
and its forms of public worship, with his sin- 
cere dislike of Presbyterianism. “ I saw,” lie 
says, writing of the clergy, “ not one in the 
islands whom I had reason to think either 
deficient in learning or irregular in life, but 
found several with whom I could not con- 
verse without wishing, as my respect in- 
creased, that they had not been Presby- 
terians.” Moreover, in each of the distant 
islands which the Doctor visited, he met 
ministers with whom even he was able to 
have genial and scholarly conversation. 
“ They had attained,” he says, “ a know- 
ledge as may be justly admired in men who 
have no motive to study but generous curi- 
osity, or, what is still better, desire of use- 
fulness ; with such politeness as no measure 
or circle of converse could ever have supplied, 
but to minds naturally disposed to elegance.” 
When in Skye, he remarks of one of those 
clergymen, Mr. McQueen, who had been his 


94 


A Highland Parish. 


guide, that lie was “ courteous, candid, sen- 
sible, well informed, very- learned;” and at 
parting, he said to him, “ I shall ever retain 
a great regard for you. Do not forget me.” 
In another island, the small island of Coll, 
he paid a visit to Mr. Maclean, who was liv- 
ing in a small, straw-thatched, mud-walled 
hut, “ a fine old man,” as the Doctor 
observed to Boswell, “ well dressed, with as 
much dignity in his appearance as the Dean 
of a cathedral ! ” Mr. Maclean had “ a val- 
uable library,” which he was obliged, “ from 
want* of accommodation, to keep in large 
chests and this solitary, shut up “ in a 
green isle amidst the ocean’s waves,” argued 
with the awful Southern Don about Lieb- 
nitz, Bayle, etc., and though the Doctor dis- 
played a little of the bear, owing to the old 
man’s deafness, yet he acknowledged that 
he u liked his firmness and orthodoxy.” In 
the island of Mull, again Johnson spent a 
night under the roof of another clergyman, 
whom he calls, by mistake, Mr. Maclean, 


The Minister and his Work. 


95 


but whose name was Macleod,* and 
of whom he says that he was u a minister 
whose elegance of conversation, and strength 
of judgment, would make him conspicuous 
in places of greater celebrity.” It i3 
pleasant to know, on such good authority, 
that there lived at that time, in these wild 
and distant parts, ministers of such character, 
manners, and learning. 

The minister of our Highland parish was a 
man of similar culture and character with 
those of his brethren, two of whom men- 
tioned by the Doctor were his intimate friends. 
He had the good fortune, let me mention in 
passing, to meet the famous traveller at 
Dunvegan Castle ; and he used to tell, with 
great glee, how he found him alone in the 
drawing room before dinner, poring over 
some volume oil the sofa, and how the Doc- 


* The grandfather of the present, and the father of 
the late Rev. Dr. Macleod of New York, U. S., both 
distinguished clergymen. 


96 


A Highland Parish. 


tor, before rising to greet liim kindly, dashed 
to the ground the book he had been reading, 
exclaiming, in a loud and angry voice, “ The 
author is an ass !” 

When the minister came to his parish., the 
people were but emerging from those old 
feudal times of clanship, with its loyal feel- 
ings and friendships, yet with its violent 
prejudices and intense clinging to the past, 
and to all that was bad as well as good in it. 
Many of his parishioners had been “ out in 
the ’45,” and were Prince Charlie men to 
the core. The minister himself was a keen 
“ Hanoverian.” This was caused by his 
very decided Protestantism, and also, no 
doubt, by his devotion to the Dun vegan 
family, which, through the influence chiefly 
of President Forbes, had opposed the Pre- 
tender. The minister, on a memorable 
occasion, had his Highland and loyal feeling 
rather severely tried. It happened thus : — 
When King William rv., like our noble 
Prince Alfred, was a midshipman in the 
royal navy, his ship, the “ Caesar,” visited 


The Minister and his Work. 


97 


the Western Isles. The minister, along with 
the other public men in the district, went to 
pay his respects to his Eoyal Highness. He 
was most graciously received, and while 
conversing with the prince on the quarter- 
deck, a galley manned with six rowers 
pulled alongside. The prince asked him to 
whom it belonged. On being informed that 
it belonged to a neighboring proprietor, the 
additional remark was made, with a kind 
smile, “ He was out, no doubt, in the ’45 ? 
Of course he was ! Ah, Doctor, all you 
Highlanders were rebels, every one of you ! 
Ha — ha — ha !” “ Please your Eoyal High- 

ness,” said the minister, with a low bow, “ I 
am thankful to say all the Highlanders were 
not rebels, for had they been so, we might 
not have had the honor and happiness of 
seeing your Eoyal Highness among us now.” 
The prince laughed heartily, and com- 
plimented the minister on the felicity of his 
reply. These were not characterized by 
much religion. The predecessor of our min- 
ister had been commanded by this party 


9 8 


A Highland Parish. 


not to dare in their hearing to pray for 
King George in church, or they would shoot 
him dead. He did, nevertheless, pray, at 
least in words, but not, we fear, in pure faith. 
He took a brace of pistils with him to the 
pulpit, and cocking them before his prayer 
began, he laid them down before him, and. 
for once at least offered up his petitions with 
his eyes open. There was no law-officer of 
the crown, not even a justice of the peace at 
that time in the whole parish. The people 
were therefore obliged to take the law to 
some extent in their own hands. Shortly 
after our minister came to the parish, he 
wrote stating that “ no fewer than thirty per- 
sons have been expelled for theft, not by sen- 
tence of the magistrate, but by the united 
efforts of the better sort of the inhabitants. 
The good effects of this expulsion have 
been sensibly felt, but a court of law having 
been established since then in the neighbor- 
hood, the necessity for such violent means 
is in a great measure obviated.” 

The minister was too far removed from 


The Minister and his Work. 


99 

the big world of Church politics, General 
Assembly debates, controversial meetings 
and pamphlets, to be a party man. It satis- 
fied him to be a part of the great catholic 
Church, and of that small section of it in 
which he had been born. The business of 
this Presbytery was chiefly local, and his 
work was confined wholly to his parish. 

After having studied eight years at a uni- 
versity, lie entered on liis charge with a 
salary of £40, which was afterwards raised 
to £80. He ministered to 2000 souls, all of 
whom — with the exception of perhaps a 
dozen families of Episcopalians and Roman 
Catholics — acknowledged him as their pastor. 
Ilis charge was scattered over 130 square 
miles, with a sea-board of 100 ! This is his 
own description of the ecclesiastical edifices 
of the parish at the beginning of his min- 
istry: — “ There are two churches so called , 
but with respect to decency of accommoda- 
tion, they might as properly be called sheds or 
barns. The dimensions of each are no more 
than forty by sixteen feet, and without seats 


lOO 


A Highland Parish. 


or bells. It is much to be regretted that 
since the Reformation little or no attention 
has been paid to the seating of churches in 
this country.” Ho such churches can now 
be found. How the congregation managed 
to arrange themselves during service in 
those “ sheds,” I know not. Did they 
stand ? sit on stones or bunches of heather ? 
or recline on the earthen floor? Fortu- 
nately the minister was an eloquent and 
earnest preacher, and he may have made 
them forget their discomfort. But the pic- 
ture is not pleasing of a congregation drip- 
ping wet, huddled together in a shed, with- 
out seats, after a long walk across the moun- 
tains. Sleeping, at all events, was impos- 
sible. 

It is worth noticing, as characteristic of 
the time, that during the first period of his 
ministry there was no copy of the Gaelic 
Scriptures in existence, except the Irish 
Bible by Bedell. The clergy translated 
what they read to the people from the 
English version. The Highlanders owed 


The Minister and his Work. 101 

much to Gaelic hymns composed by some of 
their own poets, and also to metrical trans- 
lations of the psalms. But even if there 
had been Bibles, most of the people had not 
the means of education. What could one or 
two schools avail in so extensive a parish ? 
To meet the wants of the people, a school 
would require to be in almost every glen. 

But preaching on Sunday, even on. a 
stormy winter’s day, was the easiest of the 
minister’s duties. There was not a road in 
the parish. Along the coast indeed for a 
few miles there was what was charitably 
called a road, and, as compared with those 
slender sheep-tracks which wormed their 
way through the glens, and across some of 
the wilder passes, it perhaps deserved the 
name. By this said road country carts 
could toil, pitching, jolting, tossing, in deep 
ruts, over stones, and through the burns, 
like waggons in South Africa, and with all 
the irregular motion of boats in a storm. 
But for twenty miles inland the hills and 
glens were as the Danes had left them. 


102 


A Highland Parish. 


The paths which traversed those wilds 
were journeyed generally on foot, but in 
some instances by “ the minister’s horse,” 
one of those sagacious creatures which, with 
wonderful instinct, ’ seemed to be able, as 
Ruari used to say, “ to smell out the road” 
in darkness. It is hardly possible to convey 
a just impression, except to those acquainted 
with Highland distances and wildernesses, of 
what the ordinary labors of such a minister 
were. Let us select one day out of many of 
a Highland pastor’s work. Immediately 
after service, a Highlander saluted him 
with bonnet off and low bow, saying, 
“John Macdonald in the Black glen is 
dying, and would like to see you, sir.” 
After some inquiry, and telling his wife not 
to be anxious if he was late in returning 

O 

home, he strode off at “a killing pace” to 
see his parishioner. The hut was distant 
sixteen Highland miles ; but what miles ! 
Not such as are travelled by the Lowland 
or Southern parson, with steps solemn and 
regular, as if prescribed by law. But 


The Minister and his Work. 


103 


this journey was over bogs, along rough 
paths, across rapid streams without bridges, 
and where there was no better shelter than 
could be found in a Swiss chalet. After 
a long and patient pastoral visit to his 
dying parishioner, the minister strikes for 
home across the hills. But he is soon met 
hv a shepherd, who tells him of a sudden 
death which had occurred hut a few hours 
before in a hamlet not far off; and to 
visit the afflicted widow will take him only a 
few miles out of his course. So be it, quoth 
the parson, and he forthwith proceeds to the 
other glen, and mingles his prayers with 
the widow and her children. But the 
longest day must have an end, and the last 
rays of the sun are gilding the mountain- 
tops, and leaving the valleys in darkness. 
And so our minister, with less elastic step, 
is ascending toward the steep Col, which 
rises for two thousand feet with great abrupt- 
ness, and narrow zig-zag path from a chain 
of fakes up past the “ Bhigi ” I have already 
described. But as he nears the summit, 


A Highland Parish. 


104 

down comes thick, palpable, impenetrable 
mist. He is confident that he knows the 
road nearly as well as the white horse, and so 
lie proceeds with great caution over deep 
moor-hags until he is lost in utter bewilder- 
ment. Well, he has before now spent the 
night under a rock, and waited until break 
of day. But having eaten only a little 
bread and cheese since morning, he longs for 
home. The moon is out, but the light only 
reveals driving mist, and the mountain 
begins to feel cold, damp, and terribly 
lonely. He walks on, feeling his way with 
his staff, when suddenly the mist clears off, 
and he finds himself on the slope of a preci- 
pice. Throwing himself on his back on the 
ground, and digging his feet into the soil, he 
recovers his footing, and with thanksgiving 
changes his course. Down comes the mist 
again, thick as before. He has reached a 
wood— where is he ? Ah ! he knows the 
wood right well, and he has passed through 
it a hundred times, so he tries to do so now, 
and in a few minutes has fallen down a bank 


The Minister and his Work. 


105 

into a pool of water. But now he surely 
has the track, and following it he reaches the 
spot in the valley from which he had started 
two hours before ! He rouses a shepherd, 
and they journey together to a ferry by 
which he can return home by a circuitous 
route. The boat is there, but the tide is out, 
for it ebbs far to seaward at this spot, and so 
he lias to wait patiently for the return of the 
tide. The tide turns, taking its own time to 
do so ; half wading, half rowing, they at last 
cross the strait. It is now daybreak, and 
the minister journeys homeward, and reaches 
the manse about five in the morn i ns. 

o 

Such land journeys were frequently 
undertaken, with adventures more or less 
trying, not merely to visit the sick, but for 
every kind of parochial duty — sometimes to 
baptize, and sometimes to marry. These 
services were occasionally performed in most 
primitive fashion at one of those green spots 
among the hills. Corrie Borrodale, among 
the old “ shieldings,” was a sort of halt-way- 
house between the opposite sides of the 


A Highland Parish. 


106 

parish. There, beside a clear well, children 
have been baptized ; and there, among the 
bonnie blooming heather, he lias married the 
Highland shepherd to his bonnie blooming 
bride. There were also in different districts 
preaching and “ catechising,” as it was called. 
The catechising consisted in examining on the 
Church Catechism and Scriptures every par- 
ishioner who was disposed to attend the 
meeting, and all did so with few exceptions. 
This “ exercise ” was generally followed by 
preacliing, both of course in the open air, 
and when weather permitted. And no sight 
could be more beautiful than that of the ven- 
erable minister seated on the side of a green 
and sheltered knoll, surrounded by the 
inhabitants of the neighboring hamlets, each, 
as his turn came, answering, or attempting 
to answer, the questions propounded with 
gravity and simplicity. A simple discourse 
followed from the same rural pulpit, to the 
simple but thoughtful and intelligent congre- 
gation. Most touching was it to hear the 
Psalms rise from among the moorland, dis- 


The Minister* and his Work. 


107 

turbing u the sleep that is among the lonely 
hills the pauses filled up by the piping of 
the plover or some mountain bird, and by 
the echoes of the streams and water-falls 
from the rocky precipices. It was a 
peasant’s choir, rude and uncultivated by 
art, but heard, I doubt not, with sympathy 
by the mighty angels who sung their own 
noblest song in the hearing of shepherds on 
the hills of Bethlehem. 

That minister’s work was thus devoted 
and unwearied for half a century. And 
there is something peculiarly pleasing and 
cheering to think of him and of others of the 
same calling and character in every church, 
who from year to year pursue their quiet 
course of holy, self-denying labor, educating 
the ignorant ; bringing life and blessing into 
the homes of disease and poverty ; sharing 
the burden of sorrow with the afflicted, the 
widow, and the fatherless ; reproving and 
admonishing, by life and word, the selfish 
and ungodly ; and with a heart ever open to 
all the fair humanities of our nature — a true 


ioB 


A Highland Parish. 


\ 


“ divine,” yet every inch a man ! Such 
men, in one sense, have never been alone — •„ 
for each could say with his Master, “ I am 
not alone, for the Father is with me.” Yet 
what knew or cared the great, bustling, reli- 
gious world about them ? Where were their 
public meetings, with reports, speeches, ad- 
dresses, resolutions, or motions about their 
work ? Where their committees and associ- 
ations of ardent philanthropists, rich suppor- 
ters, and zealous followers? Where their 
u religious ” papers, so called, to parade them 
before the world, and to crown them with 
the laurels of puffs and leading articles ? 
Alone, he, and thousands like him have la- 
bored, the very salt of the earth, the noblest 
of their race 


(5TS) 



VI. 


Passing Away. 


HE minister, when verging on fourscore, 



-i- became blind. A son of the manse, bis 
youngest, was, to bis joy, appointed to be bis 
assistant and successor in the ministry. I can 
not forget the last occasion on which “ the 
old man eloquent ” appeared in the pulpit. 
The Holy Communion was about to be dis- 
pensed, and, before parting for ever from his 
flock, be wished to address them once more. 
When he entered the pulpit he mistook the 
side for the front ; but old Rory, who watch- 
ed him with intense interest, was immediate- 
ly near him, and seizing a trembling hand, 
placed it on the book- board, thus guiding his 
master into the right position for addressing 
the congregation. And then stood up that 



1 10 


A Highland Parish. 


venerable man, a Saul in height among the 
people, with his pure white hair falling back 
from his ample forehead over his shoulders. 
Few, and loving, and earnest w T ere the words 
he spoke, amidst the profound silence of a 
passionately devoted people, which was bro- 
ken only by their low sobs, when he told 
them that they should see his face no more. 
Soon afterwards he died. The night of his 
death, sons and daughters were grouped 
around his bed, his wife on one side, old Ro- 
ry on the other. His mind had been wand- 
ering during the day. At evening he sat up 
in bed ; and one of his daughters, who sup- 
ported his head, dropped a tear on his face. 
Rory rebuked her and wiped it off, for it is 
a Highland superstition that no tear should 
ever drop on the face of a good man dying — 
is it because it adds to the burden of dying, 
or is unworthy of the glorious hopes of liv- 
ing ? Suddenly the minister stretched forth 
his hand, as if a child were before him, and 
said, “ I baptize thee in the name of the Fa- 
ther, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” then 


Passing Away. 


ill 


falling back, he expired. It seemed as if it 
were his own baptism as a child of glory. 

The widow did not long survive her hus- 
band. She had, with the quiet strength and 
wisdom of love, nobly fulfilled her part as 
wife and mother. But who can know what 
service a wife and mother is to a family save 
those who have had this stalf to lean on, this 
pillow to rest on, this sun to shine on them, 
this best of friends to accompany them, until 
their earthly journey is over, or far ad- 
vanced ? 

Her last years were spent in peace in the 
old manse, occupied then and now by her 
youngest son. But she desired, ere she died, 
to see her first-born in his lowland manse far 
away, and with him and his children to con- 
nect the present with the past. She accom- 
plished her wishes, and left an impress on 
the young of the third generation which they 
have never lost during the thirty years that 
have passed since they saw her face and 
heard her voice. Illness she had hardly ever 
known. One morning a grandchild gently 


i 1 2 


A Highland Parish. 


opened her bedroom door with breakfast. 
But hearing the low accents of prayer, she 
quietly closed it again and retired. When 
she came again, and tapped and entered, all 
was still. The good woman seemed asleep in 
peace — and so she was, but it was the sleep 
of death. She was buried in the Highland 
kirkyard, beside her husband and nine of her 
children. There, with sweet young ones, of 
another generation, who have since then 
joined them from the same manse, they rest 
until the resurrection morning, when all will 
meet “ in their several generations.” 

Old Rory next followed his beloved mas- 
ter. One evening, after weeks of illness, he 
said to his wife, “ Dress me in my best ; get 
a cart ready ; I must go to the manse and bless 
them all, and then die.” His wife thought 
at first that his strange and sudden wish was 
the effect of delirium, and she was unwilling 
to comply. But Rory gave the command in 
a tone which was never heard except when, 
at sea or on land, he meant to be obeyed. 
Arrayed in his Sunday’s best, the old man, 


Passing Away. 


1 *3 

feeble, pale, and breathless, tottered into the 
parlor of tbe manse, where the family were 
soon aronnd him, wondering, as if they had 
seen a ghost, what had brought him there. 
“ I bless you all, my dear ones,” he said, 
“ before I die.” And, stretching out his 
hands, he pronounced a patriarchal blessing, 
and a short prayer for their welfare. Shak- 
ing hands with each, and kissing the hand of 
his old and deal mistress, he departed. The 
family group felt awe-struck — the whole 
scene was so sudden, strange and solemn. 
Next day, Rory was dead. 

Old Jenny, the hen wife, rapidly followed 
Rory. Why mention her ? Who but the 
geese or the turkeys could miss her ? But 
there are, I doubt not, many of my readers 
who can fully appreciate the loss of an old 
servant who, like Jenny, for half a century, 
has been a respected and valued member of 
the family. She was associated with the 
whole household of the manse. Neither she 
nor any of those old domestics had ever been 


u 4 


A Highland Parish. 


mere things , but living persons with hearts 
and heads, to whom every burden, every joy 
of the family were known. USTot a child but 
had been received into her embrace on the 
day of birth ; not one wdio had passed away 
but had received her tears on the day of 
death ; and they had all been decked by her 
in their last as in their first garments. The 
official position she occupied as henwife had 
been created for her in order chiefly to re- 
lieve her feelings at the thought of her being 
useless and a burden in her old age. When 
she died, it was discovered that the affec- 
tionate old creature had worn next her heart 
and in order to be buried with her, locks of 
hair cut off in infancy from the children 
whom she had nursed. And here I must re- 
late a pleasing incident connected with her. 
Twenty years after her death, the younger 
son of the manse, and its present possessor, 
was deputed by his church to visit, along 
with two of his brethren, the Presbyterian 
congregations of North America. When on 
the borders of Lake Simcoe he was sent for 


Passing Away. 


n 5 

by an old Highland woman who could speak 
her own language only, though she had left 
her native hills very many years before. On 
entering her log hut the old woman hurst in- 
to a flood of tears, and, without uttering a 
word, pointed to a silver brooch which 
clasped the tartan shawl on her bosom. She 
was Jenny’s youngest sister, and the silver 
brooch she wore, and which was immediately 
recognised by the minister, had been pre- 
sented to Jenny by the eldest son of the 
manse, when at college, as a token of affec- 
tion for his old nurse. 

Nearly forty years after the old minister 
had passed away, and so many of “ the old 
familiar faces ” had followed him, the manse 
boat, which in shape and rig was literally 
descended from the famous “ Roe,” lay be- 
calmed, on a beautiful summer evening, op- 
posite the shore of the glebe. The many 
gorgeous tints from the setting sun were re- 
flected from the bosom of the calm sea. 
Vessels, “ like painted ships upon a painted 


li6 A Highland Parish. 

ocean,” lay scattered along “ the Sound,” 
and floated double, ship and shadow. The 
hills on both sides rose pure and clear into 
the blue sky, revealing every rock and pre- 
cipice, with heathery knoll or grassy Alp. 
Fish sometimes broke the smooth un rippled 
sea, “ as of old the Curlews called.” The 
boating party had gone out to enjoy the per- 
fect repose of the evening, and allowed the 
boat to float with the tide. The conversa- 
tion happened to turn on the manse and pa- 
rish. 

“ I was blamed the other day,” remarked 
the minister, who was one of the party, “ for 
taking so much trouble in improving my 
glebe, and especially in beautifying it with 
trees and flowers, because, as my cautious 
friend remarked, I should remember that I 
was only a life-renter. But I asked my ad- 
viser how many proprietors in the parish — 
whose families are supposed to have a better 
security for their lands than the minister has 
for the glebe — have yet possessed their prop* 
erties so long as our poor family has possessed 


Parsing Away. 


ii 7 


the glebe ? lie was astonished, on consider- 
ation, to discover that every property in the 
parish had changed its owner, and some of 
them several times, since I had succeeded 
my father.” 

“ And if we look back to the time since 
our father became minister,” remarked ano- 
ther of the party, u the changes have been 
still more frequent. The only possessors of 
their first home, in the whole parish, are the 
family which had no ‘possessions’ in it.” 

“ And look,” another said, “ at those who 
are in this boat. How many birds are here 
out of the old nest !” And strange enough, 
there were in that boat the eldest and youn- 
gest sons of the old minister, both horn on 
the glebe, and both doctors of divinity, who 
had done good, and who bad been honored 
in their time. There were also in the boat 
threa ordained sons of those old sons born of 
the manse, in all, five ministers descended 
from the old minister. The crew was made 
up of an elderly man, the son of “ old Rory,” 


A Highland Parish. 


118 

and of a white-haired man, the son of “ old 
Archy,” both born on the glebe. 

But these cl erg}' represented a few only of 
the descendants of the old minister who w'ere 
enjoying the manifold blessings of life. 
These facts are mentioned here in order to 
connect such mercies with the anxiety ex- 
pressed sixty years ago by the poor parson 
himself in the letter to his girls, which I 
have published. 

One event more remains for me to record 
connected with the old manse, and then the 
silence of the hills in which that lonely home 
reposes, will no more be broken by any word 
of mine about its inhabitants, except as they 
are necessarily associated with other remin- 
iscences. It is narrated in the memoir lately 
published of Professor Wilson, that when the 
eldest son of our manse came to Glasgow 
College, in the heyday of his youth, he was 
the only one who could compete in athletic 
exercises with the Professor, who was his 
friend and fellow student. That physical 


Passing Away. 


19 


strength, acquired in his early days by the 
manly training of the sea and hills, sustained 
his body : while a spiritual strength, more 
noble still, sustained his soul, during a min- 
istry, in three large and difficult parishes, 
which lasted, with constant labor, more than 
half a century, and until he was just about to 
enter on his eightieth year — the day of his 
funeral being the anniversary of his birth. 
He had married in early life the daughter of 
one of the most honorable of earth, who had, 
for upwards of forty years, with punctilious 
integrity, managed the estates of the Argyle 
family in the Western Highlands. -Her fa- 
ther’s house was opposite the old manse, and 
separated from it by the “ Sound.” This in- 
vested that inland sea which divided the two 
lovers, with a poetry that made “ The Roe ” 
and her perilous voyages a happy vision that 
accompanied the minister until his last hour. 
For three or four years he had retired from 
public life to rest from his labors, and in 
God’s mercy to cultivate the passive more 
than the active virtues in the bosom of his 


120 


A Highland Parish. 


own family. But when disposed to sink into 
the silent pensiveness and the physical de- 
pression which often attend old age, one to- 
pic, next to the highest of all, never failed to 
rouse him — like a dying eagle in its cage, 
when it sees afar off the mountains on which 
it tried its early flight — and that one was 
converse about the old parish, of his father, 
and of his youth. And thus it happened that 
on the very last evening of his life he was 
peculiarly cheerful, as he told some stories 
of that long past — and among others a cha- 
racteristic anecdote of old Rory. How nat- 
urally did the prayer of thanksgiving then 
succeed the memories of those times of peace 
and of early happiness ! 

That same night his first and last love— 
the “ better half,” verily, of his early life, 
was awoke from her anxious slumbers near 
him, by his complaint of pain. But she had 
no time to rouse the household ere he, put- 
ting his arms round her neck, and breathing 
the words “ my darling ” in her ear, he fell 
asleep. He had for more than twenty-five 


Passing Away. 


21 


years ministered to an immense congrega- 
tion of Highlanders in Glasgow, and his pub- 
lic funeral was remarkable, not chiefly for 
the numbers who attended it, or the crowds 
which followed it — for these things are com- 
mon in such ceremonies — but for the sympa- 
thy and sorrow manifested by the feeble and 
tottering Highland men and women, many of 
whom were from the old parish, and who, 
bathed in tears, struggled to keep up with 
the hearse, in order to be near, until the last 
possible moment, one for whom they had an 
enthusiastic attachment. The Highland hills 
and their people were to him a passion — and 
for their good he had devoted all the energies 
of his long life, and not in vain. His name 
will not, I think, be lost in this generation — 
wherever at least the Celtic language is spo- 
ken, and though this notice of him may have 
no interest to the Southern reader, who may 
not know nor care to know his name, yet 
every Gael in the most distant colony who 
reads these lines, will pardon me for writing 
them. He belongs to them as they did to him. 



VII. 

Characteristics of the Highland 
Peasantry. 

1 KN0W little from personal observation 
about the Highlanders in the far North, 
or in the central districts of Scotland, but I 
am old enough to have very vivid reminis- 
cences of those in the West; and of their, 
character, manners and customs as these ex- 
isted during that transition period which be- 
gan after “the 45,” but which has now al- 
most entirely passed away with emigration, 
the decay of the “ kelp” trade, the sale of so 
many old properties, and the introduction ot 
large sheep farms, deer forests, and extensive 
shootings. I have conversed with a soldier 
— old John Shoemaker, he was called — who 
bore arms under Prince Charlie. On the 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


123 


day I met him, he had walked several miles, 
was hale and hearty though upwards of a 
hundred years old, and had no money save 
ten shillings which he always carried in his 
pocket to pay for his coffin. He conversed 
quite intelligently about the olden time with 
all its peculiarities. I have also known very 
many who were intimately acquainted with 
the 11 lairds” and men of those days, and who 
themselves imbibed all the impressions and 
views then prevalent as to the world in gen- 
eral, and the Highlands in particular. 

The Highlanders whom the tourist meets 
with now-a-days are very unlike those I used 
to know, and who are now found only in 
some of the remote unvisited glens, like the 
remains of a broken up Indian nation on the 
outskirts of the American settlements. The 
porters who scramble for luggage on the 
quays of Oban, Inverary, Fort William, or 
Portree ; the gillies who swarm around a 
shooting box, or even the more aristocratic 
keepers — that whole set, in short, who live 
by summer tourists or autumnal sportsmen— 


2 4 


A Highland Parish. 


are to tne real Highlander, in his secluded 
parish or glen, what a commissionaire in an 
hotel at Innspruck is to Hofer and his con- 
federates. 

The real Highland peasantry are, I hesit- 
ate not to affirm, by far the most intelligent 
in the world. I say this advisedly, after hav- 
ing compared them with those of many 
countries. Their good breeding must strike 
every one who is familiar with them. Let a 
Highland shepherd from the most remote 
glen be brought into the dining room of the 
laird, as is often done, and he will converse 
with ladies and gentlemen, partake of any 
hospitality which may be shown him with 
ease and grace, and never say or do anything 
gauche or offensive to the strictest propriety. 
This may arise in some degree from what 
really seems an instinct in the race, but more 
probably it comes from the familiar inter- 
course which, springing out of the old fami- 
ly and clan feeling, always subsists between 
the upper and lower classes. The Highland 
gentleman never meets the most humble pea- 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


125 


sant whom he knows without chatting with 
him as with an acquaintance, even shaking 
hands with him ; and each man in the dis- 
trict, with all his belongings, ancestry and 
descendants included, is familiarly known to 
every other. Yet this familiar intercourse 
never causes the inferior at any time, or for 
a single moment, to alter the dignified res- 
pectful manner which he recognises as due to 
his superior. They have an immense rever- 
ence for those whom they consider real gen- 
tlemen or those who belong to the good fam- 
ilies, however distantly connected with them. 
No members of the aristocracy can distin- 
guish more sharply than they do between 
genuine blood though allied with poverty, 
and the want of it though allied with wealth. 
Different ranks are defined with great care 
in their vocabulary. The chief is always 
called lord, “ the lord of Lochiel,” “ the lord 
ofLochliuy.” The gentlemen tenants are 
called “ men,” “ the man ” of such and such 
a place. The poorest “ gentleman” who 
labors with his own hands is addressed in 


126 A Highland Parish. 

more respectful language than his better-to- 
do neighbor who belongs to their own ranks, 
The one is addressed as “ you,” the other as 
“ thou and should a property be bought 
by some one who is not connected with the 
old or good families, he may possess thous- 
ands, but he never commands the same rev- 
erence as the poor man w r ho has yet “ the 
blood ” in him. The “ pride and poverty” of 
the Gael have passed into a proverb, and ex- 
press a fact. 

They consider it essential to good manners 
and propriety never to betray any weakness 
or sense of fatigue, hunger or poverty. They 
are great admirers in others of physical 
strength and endurance, those qualities 
which are most frequently demanded of 
themselves. When, for example, a number 
of Highland servants sit down to dinner, it is 
held $s proper etiquette to conceal the slight- 
est eagerness to begin to eat ; and the eat- 
ing, when begun, is continued with apparent 
indilference, the duty of the elder persons 
being to coax the younger, and especially 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


127 


any strangers that are present, to resume 
operations after they have professed to have 
partaken sufficiently of the meal. They al- 
ways recognise liberal hospitality as essential 
to a gentleman, and have the greatest con- 
tempt for narrowness or meanness in this 
department of life. Drunkenness is rarely 
indulged in as a solitary vice, but too exten- 
sively, I must admit, at fairs and other occa- 
sions — funerals not excepted — when many 
meet together from a distance with time on 
their hands and money in their pockets. 

The dislike to make their wants known or 
to complain of poveity, was also characteris- 
tic of them before the poor law was intro- 
duced, or famine compelled them to become 
beggars upon the general public. But even 
when the civilized world poured its treasures 
twenty years ago, into the Fund for the Be- 
lief of Highland destitution, the old people 
suffered deeply ere they accepted any help. 
I have known families who closed their win- 
dows to keep out the light, that their child- 
ren might sleep on as if it were night, and 


128 A Highland Parish. 

not rise to find a home without food. I re- 
member being present at the first distribu- 
tion of meal in a distant part of the High- 
lands. A few old women had come some 
miles, from an inland glen, to receive a por- 
tion of the bounty. Their clothes were 
rags, but every rag was washed, and patched 
together as best might be. They sat apart 
for a time, but at last approached the circle 
assembled round the meal depot. I watched 
the countenances of the group as they con- 
versed apparently on some momentous ques- 
tion. This I afterwards ascertained to be, 
which of them should go forward and speak 
for the others. One woman was at last se- 
lected, while the rest stepped back and hung 
their heads, concealing their eyes with their 
tartan plaids. The deputy slowly walked 
towards the rather large official committee, 
whose attention, when at last directed to 
her, made her pause. She then stripped her 
right arm bare, and holding up the miserable 
skeleton, burst into tears and sobbed like a 
child. Yet, during all these sad destitution 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


129 


times, there was not a policeman or soldier 
in those districts. No food riot ever took 
place, no robbery was attempted, no sheep 
was ever stolen from the hills — and all this 
though hundreds had only shell-tish, or 
“ dulse,” gathered on the seashore to depend 
upon. 

The Highlander is assumed to he a lazy 
animal, and not over honest in his dealings 
with strangers. I have no desire to be a 
special pleader in his behalf, with all my na- 
tional predilections in his favor. But I must 
nevertheless dissent to some extent from 
these sweeping generalisations. He is natu- 
rally impulsive and fond of excitement, and 
certainly is wanting in the steady, persever- 
ing effort which characterises his Southern 
brother. But the circumstances of his coun- 
try, his small “ croft ” and want of capital, 
the bad land and hard weather, with the 
small returns for his uncertain, labor, have 
tended to depress rather than to stimulate 
him. One thing is certain, that when he is 
removed to another clime and placed in more 
5 


13 ° 


A Highland Parish. 


favorable circumstances, he exhibits a perse- 
verance and industry which make him rise 
very rapidly. 

It must be confessed, however, that High- 
land honesty is sometimes very lax in its 
dealings with the Sassenach. The Highland 
er forms no exception, alas, to the tribe of 
guides, drivers, boatmen, all over Europe, 
who imagine that the tourist possesses un- 
limited means, and travels only to spend mo- 
ney. A friend of mine who had been so 
long in India that he lost the Highland ac- 
cent, though not the language, reached a 
ferry on his journey home, and, concealing 
his knowledge of Gaelic, asked one of the 
Highland boatmen what his charge w^as. 
“ I’ll ask the maister,” was his reply. The 
master being unable to speak English, this 
faithful mate acted as interpreter. “ What 
will you take from this Englishman?” quoth 
the interpreter. “ Ask the fellow ten shil- 
lings,” was the reply of the honest master, 
the real fare being five shillings. “ He 
Bays,” explained the interpreter, “ that he is 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 131 

sorry he cannot do it under twenty shillings, 
and that’s cheap.” Without saying anything, 
the offer was apparently accepted, but while 
sailing across my friend spoke in Gaelic, on 
which the interpreter sharply rebuked him 
in the same language. u I am ashamed of 
you,” he said ; “ I am indeed, for I see you 
are ashamed of your country ; och, och, to 
pretend to me that you were an English- 
man ! You deserve to pay forty shillings, 
but the ferry is only five !” Such specimens, 
however, are found only along the great tou- 
rist thoroughfares, where they are in every 
country too common. 

I have said that the Highlanders are an in- 
telligent, cultivated people, as contrasted 
with that dull, stupid, prosaic, incurious con- 
dition of mind which characterises so many 
of the peasantry in other countries. Time 
never hangs heavily on their hands during 
even the long winter evenings when outdoor 
labor is impossible. When I was young, I 
was sent to live among the peasantry “ in the 
parish,” so as to acquire a knowledge of the 


32 


A Highland Parish. 


language ; and living, as I did, very much 
like themselves, it was my delight to spend 
the long evenings in their huts hearing their 
tales and songs. These huts were of the most 
primitive description. They were built of 
loose stones and clay, the walls were thick, 
the door low, the rooms numbered one only, 
or in more aristocratic cases two. The floor 
was clay, the peat fire was built in the mid- 
dle of the floor, and the smoke, when amia- 
ble and not bullied by a sulky wind, escaped 
quietly and patiently through a hole in the 
roof. The window was like a porthole, part 
of it generally filled with glass and part with 
peat. One bed, or sometimes two, with clean 
home-made sheets, blankets and counterpane 
— a “ dresser,” with bowls and plates, a large 
chest, and a corner full of peat, filled up the 
space beyond the circle about the fire. Upon 
the rafters above, black as ebony from peat 
reek, a row of hens and chickens with a state- 
ly cock roosted in a Paradise of heat. 

Let me describe one of these evenings. 
Round the fire are seated, some on stools, 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


*33 


some on stones, some on the floor, a happy 
group. Two or three girls, fine, healthy blue 
eyed lasses, with their hair tie’d up with rib- 
bon snood, are knitting stockings. Hugh, 
the son of Sandy, is busking hooks ; big Ar- 
chy is peeling willow wands and fashioning 
them into baskets ; the shepherd Donald, the 
son of Black John, is playing on the Jews’ 
harp; while beyond the circle are one or 
two herd boys in kilts, reclining on the floor, 
all eyes and ears for the stories. The per- 
formances of Donald begin the evening, and 
form interludes to its songs, tales, and recit- 
ations. He has two large “ Lochaber 
trumps,” for Lochaber trumps were to the 
Highlands what Cremona violins have been 
to musical Europe. He secures the end of 
each with his teeth, and grasping them with 
his hands so that the tiny instruments are 
invisible, he applies the little finger of each 
hand to their vibrating steel tongues. He 
modulates their tones with his breath, and 
brings out of them Highland reels, strath- 
speys, and jigs — such wonderfully beautiful, 


134 


A High’and Pari h. 


silvery, distinct and harmonious sounds as 
would draw forth cheers and an encore even 
in St. James’s Hall. But Donald the son of 
Black John is done, and he looks to bonny 
Mary Cameron for a blink of her hazel eye to 
reward him, while in virtue of his perform- 
ance he demands a song from her. Now 
Mary has dozens of songs, so has Kirsty, so 
has Flory — love songs, shearing songs, wash- 
ing songs, Prince Charlie songs, songs com- 
posed by this or that poet in the parish, and 
therefore Mary asks, What song ? So until 
she can make up her mind, and have a little 
playful flirtation with Donald the son of 
Black John, she requests Hugh the son of 
Sandy to tell a story. Although Hugh has 
abundance of this material, he too protests 
that he has none. But having betrayed this 
modesty, he starts off with one of those tales, 
the truest and most authentic specimens of 
which are given by Mr. Campbell, to whose 
admirable and truthful volumes I refer the 
reader. 

When the story is done, improvisatore is 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


35 


often tried, and amidst roars of laughter the 
aptest verses are made, sometimes in clever 
satire, sometimes with knowing allusions to 
the weaknesses or predilections of those 
round the fire. Then follow riddles and 
puzzles ; then the trumps resume their tunes, 
and Mary sings her song, and Kirsty and 
Flory theirs, and all join in the chorus, and 
who cares for the wind outside or the peal 
reek inside ! Never was a more innocent or 
happy group. 

This fondness for music from trump, fid- 
dle, or bagpipe, and for song singing, story 
telling, and improvisatore, was universal, and 
imparted a marvellous buoyancy and intelli- 
gence to the people. 

These peasants were, moreover, singularly 
inquisitive, and greedy of information. It 
was a great thing if the schoolmaster or any 
one else w T as present who could tell them 
about other people and other places. I re- 
member an old shepherd who questioned me 
closely how the hills and rocks were formed, 
as a gamekeeper had heard some sportsmen 


136 A Highland Parish. 

talking about this. The questions which are 
put are no doubt often. odd enough. A wo- 
man, for example, whose husband was anx- 
ious to emigrate to Australia, stoutly opposed 
the step until she could get her doubt solved 
on some geographical point which greatly 
disturbed her. She consulted the minister, 
and the tremendous question which chiefly 
weighed on her mind was, whether it was 
true that the feet of the people there were 
opposite to the feet of the people at home ? 
and if so — what then ? 

There is one science the value of which it 
is very difficult to make a Highlander com- 
prehend, and that is mineralogy. He con- 
nects botany with the art of healing ; astron- 
omy with guidance from the stars, or naviga- 
tion ; chemistry with dyeing, brewing, Ac. ; 
but “ chopping bits off the rocks,” as he calls 
it, this has always been a mystery. A shep- 
herd, while smoking his cutty at a small 
Highland inn, was communicating to another 
in Gaelic his experience of “mad English- 
men,” as he called them. “ There was one,” 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


>37 


said the narrator, “ who once gave me his 
bag to carry to the inn by a short cut across 
the hills, while lie walked by another road. I 
was wondering myself why it was eo dread- 
fully heavy, and when I got out of his sight 
I was determined to see what was in it. I 
opened it, and what do you think it was ? 
But I need not ask you to guess, for you 
would never find out. It was stones !” 
<c Stones !” exclaimed his companion, open- 
ing his eyes. “Stones! Well, well — that 
beats all I ever knew or heard of them. And 
did you carry it ?” “ Carry it ? Do you 

think I was as mad as himself ? Ho ! I emp- 
tied them all out, but I filled the bag again 
from the cairn near the house, and gave him 
good measure for his money.” 

The schoolmaster has been abroad in the 
Highlands during these latter years, and few 
things are more interesting than the eager- 
ness with which education has been received 
by the people. When the first deputation 
from the Church of Scotland visited the 
Highlands and islands, in a government 


138 A Highland Parish. 

cruiser put at their disposal, to inquire into 
the state of education and for the establishing 
of schools in needy districts, most affecting 
evidence was afforded by the poor people of 
their appreciation of this great boon. In one 
island where an additional school was prom- 
ised, a body of the peasantry accompanied 
the deputation to the shore, and bade them 
farewell with expressions of the most tender 
and touching gratitude ; and as long as they 
were visible from the boat, every man was 
seen standing with his head uncovered. In 
another island where it was thought necessa- 
ry to change the site of the school, a woman 
strongly protested against the movement. In 
her fervor she pointed to her girl and said, 
“ She and the like of her cannot walk many 
miles to the new school, and it was from her 
dear lips I first heard the words of the bless- 
ed Gospel read in our house ; for God’s sake 
don’t take away the school.” Iler pleading 
was successful. Old men in some cases went 
to school to learn to read and write. One old 
man, when dictating a letter to a neighbor, 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


139 


got irritated at the manner in which his sen- 
timents had been expressed by his amanuen- 
sis, u I'm done of this !” he at length ex- 
claimed. “ Why should I have my tongue 
in another man’s mouth when I can learn to 
think for myself on paper ? I ’ll go to the 
school and learn to write.” And he did so. 
A class in another school was attended by 
elderly people. One of the boys in it, who 
was weeping bitterly, being asked the cause 
of his sorrow, ejaculated in sobs, “ I trapped 
my grandfather, and he’ll no let me up !” 
The boy was immediately below his grandfa- 
ther in the class, and having “ trapped ” or 
corrected him in his reading, he claimed the 
right of getting above him, which the old 
man had resisted. 

I may notice, for the information of those 
interested in the education of the Irish or 
Welsh speaking populations, that Gaelic is 
taught in all the Highland schools, and that 
the result lias been an immediate demand 
for English. The education of the faculties, 
and the stimulus given to acquire informa- 


140 A Highland Parish. 

tion, demand a higher aliment than can he 
afforded by the medium of the Gaelic lan- 
guage alone. But it is not my intention to 
discourse, in these light sketches, upon gr;ive 
themes, requiring more space and time to do 
them justice than our pages can afford. 

Another characteristic feature of the High- 
land peasantry is the devoted and unselfish 
attachment which they retain through life to 
any of their old friends and neighbors. An 
intimate knowledge of the families of the 
district is what we might expect. They are 
acquainted with all their ramifications by 
blood or by marriage, and from constant per- 
sonal inquiries, keep up, as far as possible, a 
knowledge of their history, though they may 
have left the country for years. I marked, 
last summer, in the Highlands, the surprise 
of a general officer from India, who was re- 
visiting the scenes of his youth, as old men, 
who came to pay their respects to him, in- 
quired about every member of his family, 
showing a thorough knowledge of all the 
marriages which had taken place, and the 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 141 

very names of the children who had been 
horn. “ I declare,” remarked the general, 
that this is the only country where they care 
to know a man’s father or grandfather ! 
AVliat an unselfish interest, after all, do these 
people take in one, and in all that belongs to 
him. And how have they found all this out 
about my nephews and nieces, with their 
children ?” Their love of kindred, down to 
those in whom a drop of their blood can be 
traced, is not so remarkable, however, as this 
undying interest in old friends, whether they 
be rich or poor. Even the bond of a common 
name — however absurd this appears— has its 
influence still in the Highlands. I remember 
when it was so powerful among old people, 
as to create not only strong predilections, 
but equally strong antipathies, toward stran- 
gers of whom nothing was known save their 
name. This is feudalism fossilised. In the 
Highlands there are other connections which 
are considered closely allied to those ot blood. 
The connection, for instance, between cliild- 
ren— it may be of the laird and of the peas- 


142 


A Highland Parish. 


ant — who are reared by the same nurse, is 
one of these. Many an officer has been ac- 
companied by his foster-brother to the wars, 
and has ever found him his faithful servant 
and friend unto death. Such an one was 
Ewen McMillan who followed Col. Cameron, 
as Fassiefern — as he was called, Highland 
fashion, from his place of residence — to whom 
Sir Walter Scott alludes in the lines — 

“ £roud Ben Nevis views with awe 
How at the bloody Quatre Bas 
Brave Cameron heard the wild hurrah 
Of conquest as he fell.” 

The foster-brother was ever beside his dear 
master, with all the enthusiastic attachment 
and devotion of the old feudal times, 
throughout the Peninsular campaign, until 
his death. The 92nd Regiment was com- 
manded by Fassiefern, and speaking of its 
conduct at the Rile, Rapier says, “ How 
gloriously did that regiment come forth to 
the charge with their colors flying, and their 
national music as if going to review ! This 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. * 143 

was to understand war. The man (Colonel 
Cameron) who at that moment, and immedi- 
ately after a repulse, thought of such milita- 
ry pomp, was by nature a soldier.” Four 
days after this, though on each of those days 
the fighting was continued and severe, the 
92nd was vigorously attacked at St. Pierre. 
Fassiefem’s horse was shot under him, and 
he was so entangled by the fall as to be ut- 
terly unable to resist a French soldier, who 
would have transfixed him but for the fact 
that the foster-brother transfixed the French- 
man. Liberating his master, and accompa- 
nying him to his regiment, the foster-brother 
returned under a heavy fire and amidst a 
fierce combat to the dead horse. Cutting 
the girths of the saddle and raising it on his 
shoulders, he rejoined the 92nd with the tro- 
phy, exclaiming, u We must leave them the 
carcase, but they will never get the saddle 
on which Fassiefern sat.” The Gaelic say- 
ings “ Kindred to twenty degrees, fosterage 
to a hundred,” and “ Woe to the father of 
the foster-son who is unfaithful to his trust,” 


H4 • 


A Highland Parish. 


•were fully verified in McMillan’s case. I 
may add one word about Colonel Cameron’s 
deatli as illustrative of the old Highland spi- 
rit. He was killed in charging the French 
at Quatre Bas. The moment he fell, his fos- 
ter-brother was by his side, carried him out 
of the field of battle, procured a cart, and sat 
in it with his master’s head resting on his 
bosom. They reached the village of Water- 
loo, where McMillan laid him on the floor of 
a deserted house by the wayside. The dying 
man asked how the day went, expressed a 
hope that his beloved Highlanders had be- 
haved well, and that his country would be- 
lieve he had served her faithfully ; and then 
commanded a piper, who had by this time 
joined them, to play a pibroch to him, and 
thus bring near to him his home among the 
hills far away. Higher thoughts w r ere not 
wanting, but these could mingle in the heart 
of the dying Highlander with “ Lochaber no 
more.” He was buried on the 17th by 
McMillan and his old brave friend Captain 
Gordon — who still survives to tell the story 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


H5 

— in the Allee Verte, on the Ghent road. 
The following year the faithful foster-brother 
returned and took the body back to Locha- 
ber ; and there it lies in peace beneath an 
obelisk which the traveller, as he enters the 
Caledonian Canal from the South, may see 
near a cluster of trees which shade the re- 
mains of the Lochiel family, of which Fassie- 
fern was the younger branch. 

It must, however, be frankly admitted that 
there is no man more easily offended, more 
thin-skinned , who cherishes longer the mem- 
ory of an insult, or keeps up with more fresh- 
ness a personal, family, or party feud, than 
the genuine Highlander. Woe be to the 
man who offends his pride or vanity ! “I 
may forgive, but I cannot forget,” is a favor- 
ite saying. He will stand by a friend to the 
last, but let a breach be once made, and it is 
most difficult ever again to repair it as it 
once was. The grudge is immortal. There 
is no man who can fight and shake hands 
like the genuine Englishman. 

It is difficult to pass any judgment on the 


146 


A Highland Parish. 


state of religion past or present in the High- 
lands. From the natural curiosity of the 
Highlanders, their desire to obtain instruc- 
tion, the reading of the Bible, and the teach- 
ing of the Shorter Catechism in the schools, 
they are on the whole better informed in re- 
spect to religion than the poorer peasantry 
of other countries. But when their religious 
life is suddenly quickened it is apt to mani- 
fest itself for a time in enthusiasm or fanati- 
cism, for the Highlander “ moveth altogeth- 
er if he move at all.” The people have all 
a deep religious feeling, but that again, un- 
less educated, has been often mingled with 
superstitions which have come down from 
heathen and Roman Catholic times. Of 
these superstitions, with some of their pecu- 
liar customs, I may have to speak in another 
chapter. 

The men of “ the 45 ” were, as a class, 
half heathen, with strong sympathies for Ro- 
manism or Episcopacy, as the supposed sym- 
bol of loyalty. I mentioned in a former 
sketch how the parish minister of that time 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


147 


had prayed with his eyes open and his pis- 
tols cocked. But I have been since remind- 
ed of a fact which I had forgotten, that one 
of the Lairds who had “ followed Prince 
Charlie,” and who sat in the gallery opposite 
the parson, had threatened to shoot him if 
he dared to pray for King George, and, on 
the occasion referred to, had ostentatiously 
laid a pistol on the book-board. It was then 
only that the minister produced his brace to 
keep the Laird in countenance ! This same 
half-savage Laird was, in later years, made 
more civilised by the successor of the belli- 
gerent parson. Our parish minister, on one 
occasion, when travelling with the Laird, 
was obliged to sleep at night in the same 
room with him in a Highland inn. After 
retiring to bed, the Laird said, “ O minister, 
I wish you would tell some tale.” “ I shall 
do so willingly,” replied the minister ; and 
he told the story of Joseph and his brethren. 
When it was finished, the Laird expressed 
his great delight at the narrative, and begged 
to know where the minister had picked it 


148 


A Highland Parish. 


up, as it was evidently not Highland. “ I 
got it,” quoth the minister, u in a hook you 
have often heard of, and where you may find 
other most delightful and instructive stories, 
which, unlike our Highland ones, are all 
true — in the Bible.” 

I will here record an anecdote of old Rory, 
illustrative of Highland superstition in its 
very mildest form. When “ the minister ” 
came to the parish, it was the custom for 
certain offenders to stand before the congre- 
gation during service, and do penance in a 
long canvas shirt drawn over their ordinary 
garments. He discontinued this severe prac- 
tice, and the canvas shirt was hung up in 
his barn, where it became an object of awe 
and fear to the farm servants, as having some- 
how to do with the wicked one. The minis- 
ter resolved to put it to some useful purpose, 
and what better could it be turned to than 
to repair the sail of the Roe, torn by a recent’ 
squall. Rory, on whom this task devolved, 
respectfully protested against patching the 
sail with the wicked shirt ; but the more he 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


H9 

did so, the more the minister — who had him- 
self almost a superstitious horror of supersti- 
tion — resolved to show his contempt for 
Rory’s fears and warnings by commanding 
the patch to be adjusted without delay, as he 
had that evening to cross the stormy sound. 
Rory dared not refuse, and his work was 
satisfactorily finished, but he gave no re- 
sponse to his master’s thanks and praises as 
the sail was hoisted with a white circle above 
the boom, marking the new piece in the old 
garment. As they proceeded on their voy- 
age, the wind suddenly rose, until the boat 
was staggering gunwale down with as much 
as she could carry. When passing athwart 
the mouth of a wide glen which, like a fun- 
nel, always gathered and discharged, in their 
concent] ated force, whatever squalls were 
puffing and whistling round the hills, the sea 
to windward gave token of a very heavy 
blast, which was rapidly approaching the 
Roe, with a huge line of foam before it, like 
the white helmet crests of a line of cavalry 
waving in the charge. The minister was at 


150 


A Highland Parish. 


the helm, and was struck by the anxiety vis- 
ible in Rory’s face, for they had mastered 
many worse attacks in the same place with- 
out difficulty. “ We must take in two reefs, 
Rory,” he exclaimed, “ as quickly as possi- 
ble. Stand by the halyards, boys ! quick 
and handy.” But the squall was down upon 
them too sharp to admit of any preparation. 
“ Reefs will do no good to-day,” remarked 
Rory with a sigh. The water rushed along 
the gunwale, which was taking in more than 
was comfortable, while the spray was flying 
over the weather bow as the brave little 
craft, guided by the minister’s hand, lay close 
to the wind as a knife. When the squall 
was at its worst, Rory could restrain himself 
no longer, but opening his large boat knife, 
sprang up and made a dash at the sail. 
Whirling the sharp blade round the white 
patch, and embracing a good allowance of 
cloth beyond to make his mark sure, lie cut 
the wicked spot out. As it flew far to lee- 
ward like a sea bird, Rory resumed his seat, 
and wiping his forehead said, u Thanks to 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 151 

Providence, that’s gone ! and just see how 
the squall is gone with it.” The squall had 
indeed spent itself, while the boat was eased 
by the big hole. <c I told you how it would 
be. Oh, never, never do the like again, min- 
ister, for it’s a tempting of the devil.” Rory 
saw he was forgiven, as the minister and his 
boys burst into a roar of merry laughter at 
the scene. 

One word regarding the attachment of the 
Highlanders to their native country. “ Cha- 
racteristic of all savages,” some reader may 
exclaim ; u they know no better.” How, I 
did not say that the Highlanders knew no 
better, for emigration has often been a very 
passion with them as their only refuge from 
starvation. Their love of country has been 
counteracted on the one hand by the lash of 
famine, and on the other by the attraction of 
a better land opening up its arms to receive 
them, with the promise of abundance to re- 
ward their toil. They have chosen, then, to 
emigrate, but what agonising scenes have 
been witnessed on their leaving their native 


A Highland Parish. 


152 

land ! The women have cast themselves on 
the ground, kissing it with intense fervor. 
The men, though not manifesting their at- 
tachment by such violent demonstrations on 
this side of the Atlantic, have done so in a 
still more impressive form in the Colonies, — 
whether wisely or not is another question, — 
by retaining their native language and cher- 
ishing the warmest affection for the country 
which they still fondly call “ home.” I have 
met in British North America very many 
who were born there, but who had no other 
language than Gaelic. It is not a little re 
markable that in South Carolina there are 
about fifteen congregations in which Gaelic 
is preached every Sunday, by native pastors, 
to the descendants of those who emigrated 
from their country about a century ago. 

Among the emigrants from u the Parish,” 
many years ago, was the piper of an old fam- 
ily which was broken up by the death of the 
last Laird. Poor “ Duncan Piper ” had to 
expatriate himself from the house which had 
sheltered him and his ancestors. The even- 


Characteristics of the Peasantry. 


153 


in<r before lie sailed lie visited the tomb of 
liis old master, and played the family pibroch 
while he slowly and solemnly paced round 
the grave, his wild and wailing notes strange- 
ly disturbing the silence of the lonely spot 
where his chief lay interred. Having done 
so, he broke his pipes, and laying them on 
the green sod. departed to return no more. 




VIII. 


The Widow and her Son. 

WIDOW, who was, I have heard, much 



A loved for her “ meek and quiet spirit,” 
left her home in “ the parish,” early one 
morning, in order to reach before evening 
the residence of a kinsman who had promised 
to assist her to pay her rent. She carried on 
her back her only child. The mountain track 
which she pursued passes along the shore of 
a beautiful salt water loch, and then through 
a green valley watered by a peaceful stream, 
which flows from a neighboring lake. It af- 
terwards winds along the margin of this soli- 
tary lake, until, near its further end, it sud- 
denly turns into an extensive copse-wood of 
oak and birch. From this it emerges half- 
way up a rugged mountain side, and entering 


The Widow and her Son. 


155 


a dark glen through which a torrent rushes 
ainidst great masses of granite, it conducts 
the traveller at last, by a zigzag ascent, up 
to a narrow gorge which is hemmed in upon 
every side by giant precipices, with a strip of 
blue sky overhead, all below being dark and 
gloomy. 

From this mountain-pass the widow’s 
dwelling was ten miles distant. She had 
undertaken a long journey, but her rent was 
some months overdue, and the sub-factor 
threatened to dispossess her. 

The morning on which she left her home 
gave promise of a peaceful day. Before 
noon, however, a sudden change took place 
in the weather. Northward, the sky became 
black and lowering. Masses of clouds came 
down upon the hills. Sudden gusts of wind 
began to whistle among the rocks, and to 
ruffle with black squalls the surface of the 
lake. The wind was succeeded by rain, and 
the rain by sleet, and the sleet by a heavy 
fall of snow. It was the month of May, and 
that storm is yet remembered as the “ great 


156 A Highland Parish. 

May storm.” The wildest day of winter nev- 
er beheld snow-flakes falling faster, or whirl- 
ing with more fury through the mountain- 
pass, Ailing every hollow and whitening eve- 
ry rock. 

Little anxiety about the widow was felt by 
the villagers, as many ways were pointed out 
by which they thought she could have es- 
caped the fury of the storm. She might have 
halted at the home of this farmer, or of that 
shepherd, before it had become dangerous to 
cross the hill. But early on the morning of 
the succeeding day they were alarmed to 
hear from a person who had come from the 
place to which the widow was travelling, 
that she had not made her appearance there. 

In a short time about a dozen men muster- 
ed to search for the missing woman. They 
heard with increasing fear at each house on 
the track that she had been seen pursuing 
her journey the day before. The shepherd 
on the mountain could give no information 
• regarding her. Beyond his hut there was 
no shelter — nothing but deep snow, and at 





. 

. 










Highlands. 


The Body of the Widow Found. 




The Widow and her Son. 


1 S7 


the summit of the pass, between the range 
of rocks, the drift lay thickest. There the 
storm must have blown with a fierce and bit- 
ter blast. It was by no means an easy task 
to examine the deep wreaths which filled up 
every hollow. At last a cry from one of the 
searchers attracted the rest to a particular 
spot, and there, crouched beneath a huge 
granite boulder, they discovered the dead 
body of the widow. 

She was entombed by the snow. A por- 
tion of a tartan cloak which appeared above 
its surface led to her discovery. But what 
had become of the child ? Hay, what had 
become of the widow’s clothes, for all were 
gone except the miserable tattered garment 
which hardly concealed her nakedness ? 
That she had been murdered and stripped, 
was the first conjecture suggested by the 
strange discovery. But in a country like 
this, in which one murder only had occurred 
in the memory of man, the notion was soon 
dismissed from their thoughts. She had 
evidently died where she sat, bent almost 


■ 5 » 


A Highland Parish. 


double ; but as yet all was mystery in regard 
to her boy or her clothing. Very soon how- 
ever these mysteries were cleared up. A 
shepherd found the child alive in a sheltered 
nook in the rock, very near the spot where 
his mother sat cold and stiff in death. He 
lay in a bed of heather and fern, and round 
him were swathed all the clothes which the 
mother had stripped off herself to save her 
child. The story of her self-sacrificing love 
was easily read. 

The incident has lived fresh in the memory 
of many in the parish ; and the old people 
who were present in the empty hut of the 
widow when her body was laid in it, never 
forgot the minister’s address and prayers as 
he stood beside the dead. He was hardly 
able to speak from tears, as he endeavored to 
express his sense of that woman’s worth and 
love, and to pray for her poor orphan boy. 

More than fifty years passed away, when 
the eldest son of the manse, then old and 
grey headed, went to preach to his Highland 
congregation in Glasgow, on the Sunday pre- 


The Widow and her Son. 


*59 


vious to that on which the Lord’s Supper 
was to be dispensed. He found a compara- 
tively small congregation assembled, for hea- 
vy snow was falling, and threatened to con- 
tinue all day. Suddenly he recalled the sto- 
ry of the widow and her son, and this as;ain 
recalled to his memory the text, “ He shall 
be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land.” He then resolved to address his peo- 
ple from these words, although he had care- 
fully prepared a sermon on another subject. 

In the course of his remarks he narrated 
the circumstances of the death of the High- 
land widow, whom he had himself known in 
his boyhood. And having done so, he asked, 
“ If that child is now alive, what would you 
think of his heart, if he did not cherish an 
alfection for his mother’s memory, and if the 
sight of her clothes, which she had wrapped 
round him in order to save his life at the cost 
of her own, did not touch his heart, and even 
fill him with gratitude and love too deep for 
words ? Yet what hearts have you, my 
hearers, if, over the memorials of your Sa- 


i6o 


A Highland Parish. 


viour’s sacrifice of Himself, wliicli you are to 
witness next Sunday, you do not feel them 
glow with deepest love, and with adoring 
gratitude ?” 

Some time after this, a message was sent 
by a dying man, requesting to see the minis- 
ter. The request was speedily complied with. 
The sick man seized him by the hand, as he 
seated himself beside the bed, and gazing in- 
tently on his face, said, “ You do not, you 
cannot recognise me. But I know you, and 
knew your father before you . I have been 
a wanderer in many lands. I have visited 
every quarter of the globe, and fought and 
bled for my king and country. But while I 
served my king I forgot my God. Though I 
have been some years in this city, I never 
entered a church. But the other Sunday, as 
I was walking along the street, I happened 
to pass your church door when a heavy 
shower of snow came on, and I entered the 
lobby for shelter, but not, I am ashamed to 
say, with the intention of worshipping God, 
or of hearing a sermon. But as. I heard 


The Widow and her Son. 161 

them singing psalms, I went into a seat near 
the door ; then you preached, and then I 
heard you tell the story of the widow and her 
son,” — here the voice of the old soldier fal- 
tered, his emotion almost choked his utter- 
ance ; but recovering himself for a moment, 
he cried, “I am that son !” and hurst into a 
flood of tears. “ Yes,” he continued, “ I am 
that son ! Never, never, did I forget my 
mother’s love. Well might you ask, what a 
heart should mine have been if she had been 
forgotten by me. Though I never saw her, 
dear to me is her memory, and my only de- 
sire now is, to lay my bones besides hers in 
the old churchyard among the hills. But, 
sir, what breaks my heart and covers me 
with shame is this — until now I never saw 
the love of Christ in giving Himself for me, 
a poor lost, hell-deserving sinner. I confess 
it ! I confess it !” he cried, looking up to 
heaven, his eyes streaming with tears ; then 
pressing the minister’s hand close to his 
breast, he added, “ It was God made you. tell 
that story. Praise he to His holy name that 
G 


1 62 


A Highland Parish. 


my dear mother has not died in vain, and 
that the prayers which, I was told, she used 
to offer for me, have been at last answered ; 
for the love of my mother has been blessed 
by the Holy Spirit for making me see, as I 
never saw before, the love of the Saviour. I 
see it, I believe it ; I have found deliverance 
now where I found it in my childhood, — in 
the cleft of the rock ; but it is the Hock of 
Ages !” and clasping his hands he repeated 
with intense fervor, “ Can a mother forget 
her sucking child, that she should not have 
compassion on the son of her womb ? She 
may forget, yet will I not forget thee !” 

He died in peace. 



IX. 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 

T HE “ upper ” and “ lower” classes in the 
Highlands were not separated from each 
other by a wide gap. The thought was never 
suggested of a great proprietor above, like a 
leg of mutton on the top of a pole, and the 
people far below, looking up to him with 
envy. On reviewing the state of Highland 
society, one was rather reminded of a pyra- 
mid whose broad base was connected with 
the summit by a series of regular steps. The 
dukes or lords, indeed, were generally far re- 
moved from the inhabitants of the land, liv- 
ing as they did for the greater part of the 
year in London ; but the minor chiefs, such 
as “ Loclinell,” “ Lochiel,” “ Coll,” “ Mac- 
leod,” “ Raasay,” &c., resided on their res- 


164 


A Highland Parish. 


pective estates, and formed centres of local 
and personal influence. They had good fam- 
ily mansions, and in some instances the old 
keep was enlarged into a fine baronial castle, 
where all the hospitality * of the far North 
was combined with the more refined domes- 
tic arrangements of the South. They had 
also their handsome barge, or well-built, well 
rigged smack or wherry ; and their stately 
piper, who played pibrochs with very storms 
of sound after dinner, or, from the bow of 
the boat, with the tartan ribbands fluttering 
from the grand war-pipe, spread the news of 
the chief’s arrival for miles across the water. 
They were looked up to and respected by the 
people. Their names were mingled with all 
the traditions of the country : they were as 
old as its history, practically as old, indeed, 
as the hills themselves. They mingled freely 
with the peasantry, spoke their language, 
shared their feelings, treated them with sym- 
pathy, kindness, and, except in outward cir- 
cumstances, were in all respects, one of 
themselves. The poorest man on their estate 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 


165 

could converse with them at any time in the 
frankest manner, as with friends whom they 
could trust. There was between them an old 
and firm attachment. 

This feeling of clanship, this interest of the 
clan in their chief, has lived down to my own 
recollection. It is not many years — for I 
heard the incident described by some of the 
clan who took part in the entente — since a 
new family burial-ground was made in an old 
property by a laird who knew little of the 
manners or prejudices of the country, having 
lived most of his time abroad. The first per- 
son whom he wished to bury in this new pri- 
vate tomb near “ the big house,” was his pre- 
decessor, whose lands 'and name he inherited 
and who had been a true representative of 
the old stock. But when the clan .heard of 
what they looked upon as an insult to their 
late chief, they formed a conspiracy, seized 
the body by force, and after guarding it for 
a day or two, buried it with all honor in the 
ancient family tomb on 

“ The Isle of Saints, where stands the old gray cross.” 


A Highland Parish. 


166 

The Tacksmen at that time formed the 
most important and influential class of a so- 
ciety which has now wholly disappeared in 
most districts. In no country in the world 
was such a contrast presented as in the High- 
lands between the structure of the houses 
and the culture of their occupants. The 
houses were of the most primitive descrip 
tion, they consisted of one story — had only 
■what the Scotch call a but and ben y that is, 
a room at each end, with a court between, 
two garret rooms above, and in some cases a 
kitchen, jbuilt out at right angles behind. 
Most of them were thatched with straw or 
heather. Such was the architecture of the 
house in which Dr. Johnson lived with the 
elegant and accomplished Sir Allan Maclean, 
in the island of Inchkenneth. The old house 
of Glendessary, again, in “ the- Parish,” was 
constructed, like a few more, of wicker-work, 
the outside being protected with turf, and 
the interior lined with wood. “ The house 
and the furniture,” writes Dr. Johnson, 
“ were ever always nicely suited. We were 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 


167 

driven once, by missing our passage, to the 
hut of a gentleman, when, after a very libe- 
ral supper, I was conducted to my chamber, 
and found an elegant bed of Indian cotton, 
spread with fine sheets. The accommodation 
was flattering ; I undressed myself and found 
my feet in the mire. The bed stood on the 
cold earth, which a long course of rain had 
softened to a puddle.” But in these houses 
were gentlemen, nevertheless, and ladies of 
education and high breeding. Writing of 
Sir Allan Maclean and his daughters, John- 
son says, “ Romance does not often exhibit a 
scene that strikes the imagination more than 
this little desert in these depths and western 
obscurity, occupied, not by a gross herdsman 
or amphibious fisherman, but by a gentleman 
and two ladies of high rank, polished man- 
ners, and elegant conversation, who, in an 
habitation raised not very far above the 
ground, but furnished with unexpected neat- 
ness and convenience, practised all the kind- 
ness of hospitality and the refinement of 
courtesy.” It was thus, too, with the old 


1 68 


A Highland Parish. 


wicker-house of Glendessary, which has not 
left a trace behind. The interior was provi- 
ded with all the comfort and. taste of a mod- 
ern mansion. The ladies were accomplished 
musicians, the harp and piano sounded in 
those “ halls of Selma,’’ and their descend- 
ants are now among England’s aristocracy. 

These gentlemen Tacksmen were generally 
men of education ; they had all small but 
well selected libraries, and had not only ac- 
quired some knowledge of the classics, but 
were fond of keeping up their acquaintance 
with them. It was not an uncommon pas- 
time with them when they met together, to 
try who could repeat the greatest number of 
lines from Yirgil or Horace, or who among 
them, when one line was repeated, could cap 
it with another line, commencing with the 
same letter as that which ended the former. 
All this may seem to many to have been pro- 
fitless-amusement, but it was not such amuse- 
ment as rude and uncultivated boors would 
have indulged in, nor was it such as is likely 
to be imitated by the rich farmers who now 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 169 

pasture their flocks where hardly a stone 
marks the site of those old homes. 

I only know one surviving gentleman 
Tacksman belonging to the period of which I 
write, and he is ninety years of age, though 
in the full enjoyment of his bodily health 
and mental faculties. About forty years ago, 
when inspecting his cattle, he was accosted 
by a pedestrian with a knapsack on his back, 
who addressed him in a language which was 
intended for Gaelic. The Tacksman, judging 
him to be a foreigner, replied in Trench, 
which met no response but a shake of the 
head, the Tackman’s French being probably 
as bad as the tourist’s Gaelic. The High- 
lander then tried Latin, which kindled a 
smile of surprise, and drew forth an immedi- 
ate reply. This was interrupted by the re- 
mark that English would probably be more 
convenient for both parties. The tourist, who 
turned out to be an Oxford student, laughing 
heartily at the interview, gladly accepted the 
invitation of the Tacksman to accompany him 
to his thatched home, and share his hospital- 


170 


A Highland Parhh. 


ity. He was surprised on entering the room 
to see a small library in the humble apart- 
ment. “ Books here I” he exclaimed, as he 
looked over the shelves. “ Addison, John- 
son, Goldsmith, Shakespeare — what ! Homer 
too ?” The farmer, with some pride, begged 
him to look at the Homer. It had been g-iv- 

O 

en as a prize to himself when he was a stu- 
dent at the University. My old friend will 
smile as he reads these lines, and will won- 
der how I heard the story. 

It was men like these who supplied the 
Highlands with clergy, physicians, lawyers, 
and the army and navy with many of their 
officers. It is not a little remarkable that the 
one island of Skye, for example, should have 
sent forth from her wild shores since the be- 
ginning of the last wars of the French revo- 
lution, twenty-one lieutenant-generals and 
major-generals, forty-eight lieutenant-colo- 
nels, six hundred commissioned officers, ten 
thousand soldiers, four governors of colonies, 
one governor-general, one adjutant-general, 
one chief baron of England, and one judge of 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 


171 


the Supreme Court of Scotland. I remember 
the names of sixty-one officers being enume- 
rated, who during the war had joined the 
army or navy from farms which were visible 
from one hill-top in “ the Parish.” Those 
times have now passed away. The High- 
lands furnish few soldiers or officers. Even 
the educated clergy are becoming few. 

One characteristic of these Tacksmen 
which more than any other, forms a delight- 
ful reminiscence of them, was their remarka- 
ble kindness to the poor. There was hardly 
a family which had not some man or woman 
who had seen better days, for their guest, 
during weeks, months, perhaps years. These 
forlorn ones might have been very distant 
relations, claiming that protection which a 
drop of blood never claimed in vain ; or for- 
mer neighbors, or the children of those who 
were neighbors long ago — or, as it often hap- 
pened, they might have had no claim what- 
ever upon the hospitable family, beyond the 
fact that they were utterly destitute, yet 
could not be treated as paupers, and had in 


172 A Highland Parish. 

God’s Providence been cast on the kindness 
of others, like waves of the wild sea breaking 
at their feet. Nor was there anything very 
interesting about such objects of charity. 
One old gentleman beggar I remember, who 
used to live with friends of mine for months, 
was singularly stupid, often bad-tempered. 
A decayed old gentlewoman, again, who was 
an inmate for years in one house, was subject 
to fits of great depression, and was by no 
means entertaining. Another needy visitor 
used to be accompanied by a female servant. 
When they departed after a sojourn of a few 
weeks, the servant was generally laden with 
wool, clothing, and a large allowance of tea 
and sugar, contributed by the hostess for the 
use of her mistress, who thus obtained sup- 
plies from different families during summer, 
which kept herself and her red-haired domes- 
tic comfortable in their small hut during the 
winter. “ Weel, weel,” said the worthy 
host, as he saw the pair depart, “ it’s a puir 
situation that of a beggar’s servant, like yon 
woman carrying the bag and poke.” Now 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 


>73 


this hospitality was never dispensed with a 
grudge, hut with all tenderness and nicest 
delicacy. These genteel beggars were re- 
ceived into the family, had comfortable quar- 
ters assigned to them in the house, partook 
of all the family meals, and the utmost care 
was taken by old and young that not one 
word should be uttered, nor anything done, 
which could for a moment suggest to them 
the idea that they were a trouble, a bore, an 
intrusion, or anything save the most. welcome 
and honored guests. This attention, accord- 
ing to the minutest details, was almost a re- 
ligion with the old Highland gentleman and 
his family. . 

The poor of the parish, strictly so called, 
were, with few exceptions, wholly provided 
for by the Tacksmen. Each farm, according 
to its size, had its old men, widows and or- 
phans depending on it for their support. The 
widow had her free house, which the farmers 
and the cottiers around him kept in constant 
repair. They drove home from u the Moss ” 
her peats for fuel — her cow had pasturage on 


174 


A Highland Parish. 


the green hills. She had land sufficient to 
raise potatoes, and a small garden for vege- 
tables. She had hens and ducks too, with 
the natural results of eggs, chickens, and 
ducklings. She had sheaves of corn supplied 
her, and these, along with her own gleanings 
were threshed at the mill with the Tacks- 
man’s crop. In short, she was tolerably 
comfortable, and very thankful, enjoying the 
feeling of being the object of true charity, 
which was returned by such labor as she 
could give, and by her hearty gratitude. 

But all this was changed when those 
Tacksmen were swept away to make room 
for the large sheep farms, and when the rem- 
nants of the people flocked from their empty 
glens to occupy houses in wretched villages 
near the sea-shore, by way of becoming Ash- 
ers — often where no Ash could be caught. 
The result has been that “ the Parish,” for 
example, which once had a population of 
twenty-two hundred souls, and received only 
£11 per annum from public (Church) funds 
for the support of the poor, expends now 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 


*75 


under the poor-law upwards of £600 annual- 
ly, with a population diminished by one half, 
and with poverty increased in a greater ra- 
tio. This, by the way, is the result general- 
ly, when money awarded by law, and distri- 
buted by officials, is substituted for the true 
charity prompted by the heart and dispensed 
systematically to known and well-ascertained 
cases, that draw it forth by the law of sym- 
pathy and Christian duty. I am quite aware 
of how poetical this doctrine is in the opin- 
ion of some political economists, but in these 
days of heresy in regard to older and more 
certain truths, it may be treated charitably. 

The effect of the poor-law, I fear, has been 
to destroy in a great measure the old feeling 
of self-respect which felt it to be a degrada- 
tion to receive any support from public char- 
ity when living, or to be buried by it when 
dead. It has loosened also those kind bonds 
of neighborhood, family relationship, and na- 
tural love which linked the needy to those 
who could and ought to supply their wants, 
and which was blessed both to the giver and 


/ 


176 A Highland Parish. 

receiver. Those who ought on principle to 
support the poor are tempted to cast them on 
the rates, and thus to lose all the good de- 
rived from the exercise of Christian almsgiv- 
ing. The poor themselves have’ become more 
need}' and more greedy, and scramble for 
the miserable pittance which is given and re- 
ceived with equal heartlessness. 

The temptation to create large sheep farms 
has no doubt been great. Rents are increas- 
ed, and more easily collected. Outlays are 
fewer and less expensive than upon houses, 
&c. But should more rent be the highest, 
the noblest object of a proprietor ? Are hu- 
man beings to be treated like so many things 
used in manufactures ? Are no sacrifices to 
be demanded for their good and happiness ? 
Granting even, for the sake of argument, 
that profit, in the sense of obtaining more 
money, will be found in the long run to mea 
sure what is best for the people as well as 
for the landlord, yet may not the converse of 
this be equally true — that the good and hap- 
piness of the people will in the long run be 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 


1 77 


found the most profitable ? Proprietors, we 
are glad to hear, are beginning to think that 
if a middle-class tenantry, with small arable 
farms of a rental of from twenty to a hundred 
pounds per annum, were again introduced 
into the Highlands, the result would be in- 
creased rents. Better still, the huge glens, 
along whose rich straths no sound is now 
heard for twenty or thirty miles but the bleat 
of sheep or the bark of dogs, would be ten- 
anted, as of yore, with a comfortable and 
happy peasantry. 

In the meantime, emigration has been to a 
large extent a blessing to the Highlands, and 
to a larger extent still a blessing to the colo- 
nies. It is the only relief for a poor and re- 
dundant population. The hopelessness of 
improving their condition, which rendered 
many in the Highlands listless and lazy, has 4 
in the colonies given place to the hope of se- 
curing a competency by prudence and indus- 
try. These virtues have accordingly sprung 
up, and the results have been comfort and 
independence. A wise political economy, 


i 7 8 


A Highland Parish. 


with sympathy for human feelings and at- 
tachments, will, w r e trust, he able more and 
more to adjust the balance between the de- 
mands of the old and new country, for the 
benefit both of proprietors and people. But 
I must return to the old tenants. 

Below the “ gentlemen ” Tacksmen were 
those who paid a much lower rent, and who 
lived very comfortably, and shared hospita- 
bly with others the gifts which God gave 
them. I remember a group of men, tenants 
in a large glen which now a has not a smoke 
in it,” as the Highlanders say, throughout 
its length of twenty miles. The}’ had the 
custom of entertaining in rotation every tra- 
veller who cast himself on their hospitality. 
The host on the occasion was bound to sum- 
mon his neighbors to the homely feast. It 
was my good fortune to be a guest when they 
received the present minister of “ the Par- 
ish,” while en route to visit some of his flock. 
We had a most sumptuous feast — oat-cake, 
crisp and fresh from the fire ; cream rich and 
thick, and more bountifnl than nectar, what- 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 


1 79 


ever that may be ; blue Highland cheese, 
finer than Stilton ; fat hens, slowly cooked on 
the fire in a pot of potatoes, without their 
skins, and with fresh butter — “ stoved hens,” 
as the superb dish was called ; and, though 
last, not least, tender kid, roasted as nicely 
as Charles Lamb’s cracklin’ pig. All was 
served up with the utmost propriety on a ta- 
ble covered with a pure white cloth and with 
all the requisites for a comfortable dinner, in- 
cluding the champagne of elastic, buoyant 
and exciting mountain air. The manners 
and conversation of those men would have 
pleased the best-bred gentleman. Everything 
was so simple, modest, unassuming, unaf- 
fected, yet so frank and cordial. The con- 
versation was such as might be heard at the 
table of any intelligent man. Alas ! there is 
not a vestige remaining of their homes. I 
know not whither they are gone, but they 
have left no representatives behind. The 
land in the glen is divided between sheep, 
shepherds, and the shadows of the clouds. 

There were annual festivals of the High- 


A Highland Parish. 


180 

land tenantry which deeply moved every 
glen, and these were the Dumbarton and 
Falkirk “ Tysts,” or fairs for cattle and sheep. 
What preparations were made for these ga- 
therings, on which the rent and income of 
•the year depended ! What a collecting of 
cattle, small and great, of drovers and of 
dogs, the latter being the most interested 
and excited of all who formed the caravan. 
What speculations as to how the market 
would turn out. What a shaking of hands 
in boats, wayside inns, and on the decks of 
steamers by the men in homespun cloth, gay 
tartans, or in the more correct new garbs of 
Glasgow or Edinburgh tailors, what a pour- 
ing in from all the glens increasing at every 
ferry and village, and flowing on a river of 
tenants and proprietors, small and great, to 
the market ! What that market was I know 
not from personal observation, nor desire to 
know. 

Let Yarrow be unseen, unknown, 

If now we’re sure to rue it, 

We have a vision of our own, 

Ah, why should we undo it ? 


. 



Highlands 


Going to Market 


Chap. 10 




Tacksmen and Tenants. 


1 8 1 


The impression left in early years is too 
sublime to be tampered with. I have a vis- 
ion of miles of tents, of flocks and herds sur- 
passed only by those in the wilderness of 
Sinai ; of armies of Highland sellers trying 
to get high prices out of the Englishmen, 
and Englishmen trying to get low prices out 
of the Ilighlandmen, but all in the way of 
“ fair dealing.” 

When any person returned who had been 
himself at the market, who could recount its 
ups and downs, its sales and purchases, with 
all the skirmishes, stern encounters and great 
victories, it was an eventful day in the 
Tacksman’s dwelling. A stranger not initia- 
ted into the mysteries of a great fair might 
have supposed it possible for any one to give 
all information about it in a brief business 
form. But there was such an enjoyment in 
details, such a luxury in going over all the 
prices, and all that was asked by the seller 
and refused by the purchaser, and again 
asked by the seller, and again refused by the 
purchaser, with the nice financial fencing of 


A Highland Parish. 


182 

u splitting the difference,” or giving back a 
“ luck’s penny,” as baffles all description. It 
was not -enough to give the prices of three- 
year-olds and four-year-olds, yell cows, crock 
ewes, stirks, stots, lambs, tups, wethers, 
shots, bulls, &c., but the stock of each well- 
known proprietor or breeder had to be dis- 
cussed. Colonsay’s bulls, Corrie’s sheep, 

' Drumdriesaig’s heifers, or Achadashenaig’s 
wethers, had all to be passed under careful 
review. Then followed discussions about 
distinguished beasts which had fetched high 
prices, their horns, their hair, their houghs, 
and general “ fashion,” with their parentage. 
It did not suffice to tell that this or that great 
purchaser from the south had given so much 
for this or that lot, but his first offer, his re- 
marks, his doubts, his advance of price, with 
the sparring between him and the Highland 
dealer, must all be particularly recorded, un- 
til the final shaking of hands closed the bar- 
gain. And after all was gone over, it was a 
pleasure to begin the same tune again with 
variations. But who that has ever heard an 


Tacksmen and Tenants. 


183 

after-dinner talk in England about a good 
day’s hunting, or a good race, will be sur- 
prised at this endless talk about a market ? 

I will close this chapter with a story told 
of a great sheep farmer — not one of the old 
gentleman tenants verily ! — who, though he 
could neither read nor write, had neverthe- 
less made a large fortune by sheep farming, 
and was opeL to any degree of flattery as to 
his abilities in this department of labor. A 
purchaser, knowing his weakness, and anx- 
ious to ingratiate himself into his good gra- 
ces, ventured one evening over their whisky 
toddy to remark, “ I am of opinion, sir, that 
you are a greater man than even the Duke 
of Wellington.” “ Hoot toot !” replied the 
sheep farmer, modestly hanging his head 
with a pleasing smile, and taking a large 
pinch of snuff. “ That is too much — too much 
by far — by far.” But his guest, after expa- 
tiating for a while upon the great powers of 
his host in collecting and concentrating upon 
a Southern market a flock of sheep, suggest- 
ed the question, u Could the Duke of Wei- 


184 


A Highland Parish. 


lington have done that ?” The sheep farmer 
thought a little, snuffed, took a glass of tod- 
dy, and replied, “ The Duke of Wellington 
was, no doot, a clever man ; very, very cle- 
ver, I believe. They tell me he was a good 
sojer, hut then, d’ye see, he had reasona- 
ble men to deal with — captains, and majors, 
and generals that could understand him, ev- 
ery one of them, both officers and men ; but 
I’m not so sure after all if he could manage 
say twenty thousand sheep, besides black 
cattle, that could not undersand one word 
he said, Gaelic or English, and bring every 
hoof o’ them to Fa’ kirk Tryst. I doot it — I 
doot it! But /have often done that.” The 
inference was evident. 





<3i 



X. 

Marriage of Mary Campbell. 

M ARY CAMPBELL was a servant in the 
old manse, about sixty years ago, and 
was an honest and bonny lassie. She had 
blue eyes and flaxen hair, with a form as 
“ beautiful as the fleet roe on the mountain,” 
a very Malvina to charm one of the heroes of 
old Ossian. Her sweetheart, however, was 
not an “ Oscar of the spear,” a u Cochullin 
of the car,” or a Fingal who “sounded his 
shield in the halls of Selma,” but was a fine- 
looking shepherd lad named Donald Maclean 
— who u wandered slowly as a cloud ” over 
the hills at morning after his sheep, and sang 
his songs, played his trump, and lighted up 
Mary’s face with his looks at evening. For 
two years they served together ; and, as in 


1 86 


A Highland Parish. 


all such cases, these years seemed as a single 
day. Yet no vows were exchanged, no en- 
gagement made between them. Smiles and 
looks, improvised songs full of lovers’ chaf- 
fing , joining together as partners in the 
kitchen dance to Archy McIntyre’s fiddle, 
showing a tendency to work at the same 
hayrick, and to reap beside each other on 
the same harvest rigs, and to walk home 
together from the kirk — these were the only 
significant signs of what was understood by 
all, that bonny Mary and handsome Donald 
were sweethearts. 

It happened to them as to all lovers since 
the world began ; the old history was repeat- 
ed in the want of smoothness with which the 
river of their affection flowed on its course. 
It had the usual eddies and turns which be- 
long to all such streams, and it had its little 
falls, with tiny bubbles, that soon broke and 
disappeared in rainbow hues, until the agita- 
ted water rested once more in a calm pool, 
dimpled with sunlight, and overhung with 
wild flowers. 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 


187 


But a terrible break and thundering fall at 
last approached with rich Duncan Stewart, 
from Lochaber ! Duncan was a well-to-do 
small tenant, with a number of beeves and 
sheep ; was a thrifty money-making bachelor 
who never gave or accepted bills for man or 
for best, but was contented with small pro- 
fits, and ready cash secured at once and 
hoarded in safety with Carrick, Brown, and 
Company’s Ship Bank, Glasgow, there ta 
grow at interest while he was sleeping — • 
though he was generally wide awake. He 
was a cousin of Mary’s, “ thrice removed,” 
but close enough to entitle him to command 
a hearing in virtue of his relationship when 
he came to court her ; and on this very er- 
rand he arrived one day at the manse, where 
as a matter of course he was hospitably re- 
ceived — alas! for poor Donald Maclean. 

Duncan had seen Mary but ohce, but hav- 
ing made up his mind, which it was not dif- 
ficult for him to do, as to her fair appear- 
ance, and having ascertained from others 
that she was in every respect a most proper- 


88 


A Highland Parish. 


ly-conducted girl, and a most accomplished 
servant, who could work in the field or dairy, 
in the kitchen or laundry — that beside the 
fire at night her hands were the most act- 
ive in knitting, sewing, carding wool, or 
spinning, he concluded that she was the very 
wife for Duncan Stewart of Blairdliu. But 
would Mary take him ? A doubt never 
crossed his mind upon that point. His con- 
fidence did not arise from his own good 
looks, for they, to speak charitably, were 
doubtful, even to himself. He had high 
cheek-bones, small teeth not innocent of to- 
bacco, and a large mouth. To these features 
there was added a sufficient number of grey 
hairs sprinkled on the head and among the 
bushy whiskers to testify to many more years 
than those which numbered the age of Mary. 
But Duncan had money, a large amount of 
goods laid up for many years, full barns and 
sheepfolds. He had a place assigned to him 
at the Fort William market, such as a well- 
known capitalist has in the City Exchange. 
He was thus the sign of a power which tells 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 189 

in every class of society. Are no fair mer- 
chants’ daughters, we would respectfully ask, 
affected in their choice of husbands by the 
state of their funds ? Has a coronet no in- 
fluence over the feelings ? Do the men of 
substance make their advances to beauties 
without it, with no sense of the weight of ar- 
gument which is measured by the weight of 
gold in their proffered hand ? Do worth and 
character, and honest love and sufficient 
means, always get fair play from the fair, 
when opposed by rivals having less character 
and less love, but with more than sufficient 
means % According to the reader’s replies 
to these questions will be his opinion as to 
the probability of Duncan winning Mary, 
and of Mary forsaking poor Donald and ac- 
cepting his u highly respectable ” and weal- 
thy rival. 

It must be mentioned that another power 
came into play at this juncture of affairs, and 
that was an elder sister of Mary’s who lived 
in the neighborhood of the farmer, and who 
was supposed, by the observing dames of the 


190 


A Highland Parish. 


district, to have “ set her cap ” at Duncan. 
But it was more the honor of the connection 
than love which had prompted those gentle 
demonstrations on the part of Peggy. She 
wished to give him a hint, as it were, that he 
need not want a respectable wife for the ask- 
ing ; although of course she was quite happy 
and contented to remain in her mother’s 
house, and help to manage the small croft, 
with its cow, pigs, poultry, and potatoes. 
Duncan, without ever pledging himself, 
sometimes seemed to acknowledge that it 
might be well to keep Peggy on his list as a 
reserve corps, in case he might fail in his 
first plan of battle. The fact must be con- 
fessed, that such marriages “ of conveni- 
ence ” were as common in the Highlands as 
elsewhere. Love, no doubt, in many cases, 
carried the day there, as it will do in Green- 
land, London, or Timbuctoo. Nevertheless, 
the dog-team, the blubber, the fishing-tackle 
of the North will, at times, tell very power- 
fully on the side of their possessor, who is 
yet wanting in the softer emotions ; and so 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 


191 


will the cowries and cattle of Africa, and the 
West-end mansion and carriage of London. 
The female heart will everywhere, in its own 
way, acknowledge that “ love is all very well, 
when one is young, but — ” and with that 
prudential “ but,” depend upon it the blub- 
ber, cowries, and carriage are sure to carry 
the day, and leave poor Love to make off 
with clipped wings ! 

Duncan, of Blairdhu, so believed, when 
he proposed to Mary, through the minister’s 
wife, who had never heard the kitchen gos- 
sip about the shepherd, and who was de- 
lighted to think that her Mary had the pros- 
pect of being so comfortably married. All 
the pros and cons having been set before 
her, Mary smiled, hung her head, pulied her 
fingers until every joint cracked, and, after 
a number of “ could not really says,” and 
“ really did not knows,” and wondered 
why he had asked her,” and “what was she 
to do,” &c., followed by a few hearty tears, 
she left her mistress, and left the impression 
that she would in due time be Mrs. Duncan 


192 


A Highland Parish. 


Stewart. Iler sister Peggy appeared on the 
scene, and, strange to say, urged the suit 
with extraordinary vehemence. She spoke 
not of love, but of honor, rank, position, 
comfort, influence, as all shining around on 
the Braes and Locliaber. Peggy never 
heard of the shepherd, but had she done so, 
the knowledge would have only moved her 
indignation. Duncan’s cousinship made his 
courtship a sort of family claim — a social 
right. It was not possible that her sister 
would he so foolish, stupid, selfish, as not to 
marry a rich man like Mr. Stewart. Was 
she to bring disgrace on herself and people 
by refusing him ? Mary was too gentle for 
Peggy, and she bent like a willow beneath 
the breeze of her appeals. She would have 
given worlds to have been able to say that 
she was engaged to Donald ; but that was 
not the cas<3. Would Donald ask her ? She 
loved him too well for her to betray her feel- 
ings so as to prompt the delicate question, 
yet she wondered why he was not coming to 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 193 

her relief at such a crisis. Did he know it ? 
Did he suspect it \ 

Donald, poor - lad, was kept in ignorance 
of all these diplomatic negotiations; and 
when at last a fellow-servant expressed his 
suspicions, he fell at once into despair, gave 
up the game as lost, lingered among the 
hills as long as possible, hardly spoke when 
he returned home at night, seemed to keep 
aloof from Mary, and one evening talked to 
her so crossly in his utter misery, that next 
morning, when Duncan Stewart arrived at 
the manse, Peggy had so arranged matters 
that Mary before the evening was under- 
stood to have accepted the hand of the rich 
farmer. 

The news was kept secret. Peggy would 
not speak. Mary could not. Duncan was 
discreetly silent, and took his departure to 
arrange the marriage, for which the day was 
fixed before he left. The minister’s wife 
and the minister congratulated Mary ; 
Mary gave no response, but pulled her fin- 
gers more energetically and nervously than 
7 


i 9 4 


A Highland Parish. 


ever. This was all taken as a sign of mod- 
esty. The shepherd whistled louder than be- 
fore for his dogs, and corrected them with 
singular vehemence ; he played his trumps 
with greater perseverance, sang his best 
songs at night, but he did not walk with 
Mary from the kirk ; and the other servants 
winked and laughed, and knew there was 
“ something atween them,” then guessed 
what it was, then knew all about it ; yet 
none presumed to tease Donald or Mary. 
There was something which kept back all 
intrusion, but no one seemed to know what 
that something was. 

The marriage dress was easily got up by 
the manse girls, and each of them added 
some bonnie gift to make Mary look still 
more bonnie. She was a special favorite, 
and the little governess with the work of 
her own hands contributed not a little to 
Mary’s wardrobe. 

All at once the girls came to the conclu- 
sion that Mary did not love Duncan. She 
had no interest in her dress ; she submitted 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 


195 


to every attention as if it were a stern duty ; 
her smile was not joyous. Their suspicions 
were confirmed when the cook, commonly 
called Kate Kitchen, confided to them the 
secret of Mary’s love for the shepherd — all, 
of course, in strict confidence ; hut every fair 
and gentle attempt was made in vain to get 
her to confess. She was either silent, or 
said there was nothing between them, or she 
would do what was right, and so on ; or she 
would dry her eyes with her apron, and 
leave the room. These interviews were not 
satisfactory, and so they were soon ended ; 
a gloom gathered over the wedding ; there 
was a want of enthusiasm about it ; everyone 
felt drifting slowly to it without any reason 
strong enough for pulling in an opposite di- 
rection. Why won’t Donald propose ? His 
proud heart is breaking, but he thinks it 
too late, and will give no sign. Why does 
not Mary refuse Duncan — scorn him, if you 
will, and cling to the shepherd ? Her little 
proud heart is also breaking, for the shep- 
herd has become cold to her. He ought to 


196 


A Highland Parish. 


have asked her, she thinks, before now, or 
even now proposed a runaway marriage, 
carried her off, and she would have flown 
with him, like a dove, gently held in an 
eagle’s talon, over hill and dale, to a nest of 
their own, where love alone would have de- 
voured her. But both said, “ ’Tis too late !” 
Fate, like a magic power, seemed to have 
doomed that she must marry Duncan 
Stewart. 

The marriage was to come off at the house 
of a Tacksman, an uncle of the bride’s, about 
two miles from the manse ; for the honor of 
having a niece married to Blairdhu de- 
manded special attention to be shown on the 
occasion. A large party was invited, a 
score of the tenantry of the district, with the 
minister’s family, and a few of the gentry, 
such as the sheriff and his wife ; the doctor ; 
and some friends who accompanied Duncan 
from Lochaber ; big Sandy Cameron from 
Locliiel ; Archy, son of Donald, from Glen 
Nevis ; and Lachlan, the son of young Lach- 
lan, from Corpach. Ilow they all managed 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 


1 97 


to dispose of themselves in the but and ben , 
including the centre closet, of Malcolm Mor- 
rison’s house, has never yet been explained. 
Those who have known the capacity of 
Highland houses, — the capacity to be full, 
and yet to be able to accommodate more, have 
thought that the walls possessed some expan- 
sive power, the secret of which has not come 
down to posterity. On that marriage day a 
large party was assembled. On the green, 
outside the house, were many Highland 
carts, which had conveyed their guests ; 
while the horses, their fore-legs being tied 
together at the fetlock, with ungainly hops 
cropped the green herbage at freedom, until 
their services were required within the next 
twelve hours. Droves of dogs were busy 
making one another’s acquaintance ; collie 
dogs and terriers — every tail erect or curled, 
and each, with bark and growl, asserting its 
own independence. Groups of guests, in 
homespun clothes, laughed and chattered 
round the door, waiting for the hour of mar- 
riage. Some of a the ladies” were gravely 


198 


A Highland Parish. 


seated within, decked out in new caps and 
ribands ; while servant-women, with load 
voices and louder steps, were rushing to and 
fro, as if in desperation, arranging the din- 
ner. This same dinner was a very ample 
one of htoved hens and potatoes, legs of mut- 
ton, roast ducks, corned beef, piles of cheese, 
tureens of curds and cream, and oat-cakes 
piled in layers. Duncan Stewart walked 
out and in, dressed in a full suit of blooming 
Stewart tartan, with frills to his shirt, which 
added greatly to his turkey-cock appearance. 

But where was the bride ? She had been 
expected at four o’clock, and it was now 
past five. It was understood that she was 
to have left the manse escorted by Hugh, son 
of big John M £ Allister. The company be- 
came anxious. A message of inquiry was at 
last despatched, but the only information re- 
ceived was that the bride had left the manse 
at two o’clock, immediately after the manse 
party. A herd-boy was again despatched to 
obtain more accurate tidings, and the gover- 
ness whispered in his ear to ask parti cu- 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 


99 


larly about the whereabouts of Donald the 
shepherd. But the boy could tell nothing, 
except that Hugh and the bride had started 
on horseback three hours before ; and as for 
Donald, he was unwell in bed, for be had 
seen him there rolled up in blankets, with 
his face to the wall. The excitement became 
intense. Duncan Stewart snuffed prodigi- 
ously ; Malcolm, Mary’s uncle, uttered sun- 
dry expressions by no means becoming ; 
Peggy, full of alarming surmises, wrung her 
hands, and threw herself on a bed in the 
middle closet. The ladies became per- 
plexed ; the sheriff consulted the company 
as to what should be done. The doctor 
suggested the suicide of the bride. The 
minister suspected more than he liked to ex- 
press. But two men mounted the best hor- 
ses, and taking a gun with them — why, no 
one could conjecture — started off in great 
haste to the manse. The timid bird had 
flown, no one knew whither. The secret 
had been kept from every human being. 
But if she was to leave the parish it could 


200 


A Highland Parish. 


only be by a certain glen, across a certain 
river, and along one path, which led to the 
regions beyond. They conjected that she 
was en route for her mother’s home, in order 
to find there a temporary asylum. To this 
glen, and along this path, the riders hurried 
with the gun. The marriage party in the 
meantime “ took a refreshment,” and made 
M‘Pherson, the bagpiper, play reels and 
strathspeys. Duncan pretended to laugh at 
the odd joke — for a joke he said it was. 
Peggy alone refused to be comforted. Hour 
after hour passed, but no news of the bride. 
The ladies began to yawn ; the gentlemen to 
think how they should spend the night ; un- 
til at last all who could not be accommo- 
dated within the elastic walls by any 
amount of squeezing, dispersed, after house 
and barn were filled, to seek quarters at the * 
manse or among the neighboring farms. 

The two troopers who rode in pursuit of 
Mary came at last, after a hard ride of twenty 
miles, to a small inn, which was the frontier 
house of the parish, and whose white walls 




Highlands. 


McPherson, the Bagpiper. 





Chap. 10 



























. 









































* 












































V - 




" ' - * 








Marriage of Mary Campbell. 


201 


marked, as on a peninsula, the ending of one 
long uninhabited glen, and the commence- 
ment of another. As they reached this soli- 
tary wayside place, they determined to put 
up for the night. The morning had been 
wet, and clouds full of rain had gathered 
after sunset on the hills. On entering the 
kitchen of the “change house,” they saw 
some clothes drying on a chair opposite the 
fire, with a “ braw cap ” and ribands sus- 
pended near them, and dripping with moist- 
ure. On making inquiry they were inform- 
ed that these belonged to a young woman 
who had arrived there shortly before, behind 
Hugh, son of big John M‘Allister of the 
manse, who had returned with the horse by 
another road over the hill. The woman was 
on her way to Lochaber, but her name was 
not known. Poor Mary was caught ! Her 
pursuers need not have verified their conjee 
tures by entering her room and upbraiding 
her in most unfeeling terms, telling her, be- 
fore locking the door in order to secure her, 
that she must accompany them back in the 


202 


A Highland Parish. ' 


morning and be married to Duncan Stewart, 
as sure as there was justice in the land. 
Mary spoke not a word, but gazed on them 
as in a dream. 

At early dawn she was mounted behind 
one of these moss-troopers, and conducted in 
safety to the manse, as she had requested to 
see the family before she went through the 
ceremony of marriage. That return to the 
manse was an epoch in its history. The 
shepherd had disappeared in the meantime, 
and so had Hugh M‘Allister. When Mary 
was ushered into the presence of the minis- 
ter, and the door was closed, she fell on her 
knees before him, and bending her forehead 
until she rested it on his outstretched hand, 
she burst forth into hysterical weeping. The 
minister soothed her, and bid her tell him 
frankly wliat all this was about. Did she 
not like Stewart? Was she unwilling to 
marry him ? “ Unwilling to marry him !” 

cried Mary, rising up, with such flashing 
eyes and dramatic manner as the minister 
had never seen before in her, or thought it 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 


203 


possible for one so retiring and shy to exhib- 
it ; “ I tell you, sir, I would sooner be chain- 
ed to a rock at low water, and rest there un- 
til the tide came and choked my breath, than 
marry that man !” and Mary, as if her whole 
nature was suddenly changed, spoke out 
with the vehemence of long-restrained free- 
dorn breaking loose at last in its own inherent 
dignity. “ Then, Mary dear,” said the min- 
ister, patting her head, u you shall never be 
married against your will, by me or any one 
else, to mortal man.” “ Bless you, dear, 
dear sir,” said Mary, kissing his hand. 

Duncan heard the news. “ What on earth, 
then,” lie asked,* “is to be done with the din- 
ner ?” for the cooking had been stopped. To 
his Lochaber friends he whispered certain 
sayings borrowed from sea and land — as, for 
example : that there were “ a 3 good fish 
in the sea as ever came out of it ” — “ that 
she who winna when she may, may live to 
rue’t another day,” and so on. He spoke and 
acted like one w r ho pitied as a friend the wo- 
man whom he thought once so wise as to 


204 


A Highland Parish. 


have been willing to marry Blairdhu. Yet 
Blairdhu’s question was a serious one, and 
was still unanswered : — “ Wliat was to be- 
come of the dinner ?” Mary’s uncle suggest- 
ed the answer. He took Duncan aside, and 
talked confidentially and earnestly to him. 
His communications were received with a 
smile, a grunt, and a nod of the head, each 
outward sign of the inward current of feeling 
being frequently repeated in the same order. 
The interview was ended by a request from 
Duncan to see Peggy. Peggy gave him her 
hand, and squeezed his with a fervor made 
up of hysterics and hope. She wept, howev- 
er, real tears, pouring forth her sympathies 
for the bridegroom in ejaculatory gasps, like 
jerks for breath, when mentioning a man of 
his “res — pect — a — bil — i — ty.” Before 
night, a match was made up between Dun- 
can and Peggy : she declaring that it was 
done to save the credit of her family, though 
it was not yesterday that she had learned to 
esteem Mr. Stewart ; he declaring that he 
saw clearly the hand of Providence in the 


Marriage of Mary Campbell.' 


205 

whole transaction — that Mary was too young, 
and too inexperienced for him, and that the 
more he knew her, the less he liked her. The 
hand of Providence was not less visible when 
it conveyed a dowry of fifty pounds from 
Peggy’s uncle with his niece. The parties 
were “ proclaimed ” in church on the follow- 
ing Sunday and married on Monday— and so 
the credit of both the family and the dinner 
was saved. 

But what of Mary ? She was married to 
the shepherd, after explanations and “ a 
scene,” which, as I am not writing fiction, 
but truth, I cannot describe, the details not 
having come to me in the traditions of the 
parish. 

Donald enlisted as a soldier in some High- 
land regiment, and his faithful Mary accom- 
panied him to the Peninsula. How he man- 
aged to enlist at all as a married man, and 
she to follow him as his wife, 1 know not. 
But I presume that in those days, when sol- 
diers were recruited by officers who had per- 
sonally known them and their people, and to 


206 


A Highland Parish. 


whom the soldier was previously attached, 
many things were permitted and favors ob- 
tained which would be impossible now. Nor 
can I tell why Mary was obliged to return 
home. But the rules or necessities of the ser- 
vice during war demanded this step. So 
Mary once more appeared at the manse in 
the possession of about sixty pounds, which 
she had earned and saved by working for the 
regiment, and which Donald had intrusted, 
along with an only daughter, to his wife’s 
care. The money was invested by the min- 
ister. Mary, as a matter of course, occupied 
her old place in the family, and found every 
other fellow servant, but Donald, where she 
had left them years before. No one received 
her with more joy than Hugh M‘Allister, 
who had been her confidante and best man. 
But what stories and adventures Mary had 
to tell ! And what a high position she occu- 
pied at the old kitchen fireside. Everything 
there was as happy as in the days of auld 
lang syne, and nothing wanting save Don- 
ald’s blithe face and merry trumps. 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 


207 


Neither Mary nor Donald could write, nor 
could they speak any language except Gaelic. 
Their stock of English was barely sufficient 
to enable them to transact the most ordinary 
business. Was it this want, and the constant 
toil and uncertain inarches of a soldier dur- 
ing war, wdiich had prevented Donald from 
writing home to his wife ? For, alas, two long 
years passed without her having once heard 
from him ! 

After months of anxious hope had gone by, 
Mary began to look old and careworn. The 
minister scanned the weekly newspaper with 
intense anxiety, especially after a battle had 
been fought, to catch her husband’s name 
among the list of the dead or wounded, lie 
had written several times for information, 
but witli little effect. All he could hear was 
that Donald was alive and well. At last the 
news came that he was married to another 
woman. A soldier journeying homewards 
from the same regiment, and passing through 
the parish, had said so to several persons in 
the village, after he had had “his glass.” 


208 


A Highland Parish. 


But the soldier was gone long before he 
could be cross-questioned. Mary heard the 
news, and though scorning the lie, as she 
said it was, the never alluded to the fearful 
story. Still the secret wound was evidently 
injuring her health ; her cheek became paler, 
u the natural force abated ” while at her 
work, and “ Kate Kitchen ” had on more 
than one occasion discovered tears dropping 
on the little girl’s face as her mother combed 
her hair, or laid her down to sleep. 

There was not a person in the house who 
did not carry poor Mary’s burthen, and 
treat her with the utmost delicacy. Many 
an expression calculated to strengthen her 
faith in God, and to comfort her, was uttered 
at family prayers, which she always at- 
tended. Yet she never complained, never 
asked any sympathy ; she was quiet, meek, 
and most unselfish, like one who tried to 
bear alone her own sorrow, without trou- 
bling others. She worked diligently, but 
never joined in the chorus song which often 
cheered the hours of labor. She clung 


Marriage of Mary Campbell. 209 

much to Hugh McAllister, who, like a shield, 
cast aside from her cruel darts which were 
shot in the parish by insinuations of 
Donald’s unfaithfulness, or the repetition of 
the story “ told by the soldier.” 

The fifth year of desolation had reached 
mid-summer, and it was clear that Mary was 
falling into permanent bad health. One 
day, having toiled until the afternoon at the 
making of a haystack, she sat down to rest 
upon some hay near it. Above, lads and 
lasses were busy trampling, under the super- 
intendence of Hugh McAllister. Hugh sud- 
denly paused in the midst of the work, and 
gazing steadfastly for a minute or two at a 
distant person approaching the manse from 
the gate, said with a suppressed voice, and 
a *c hush” which commanded silence, “ If 
Donald Maclean is in life, that’s him !” 
Every eye was directed to the traveller, who 
with knapsack on his back, was slowly ap- 
proaching. ‘c It’s a beggar,” said Kate 
Kitchen. — “ It’s like Donald, after all,” said 
another, as the sounds of the traveller’s feet 


210 


A Highland Parish. 


were heard on the narrow gravel walk. — “ It 
is him, and none but him !” cried Hugh as 
he slid down to the ground, having seen 
Donald’s face as he took off his cap and 
waved it. Flying -to Mary, who had been 
half asleep from fatigue, he seized her by the 
hand, raised her up, and putting his brawny 
arm round her neck, kissed her ; then brush- 
ing away a tear from his eye with the back 
of his rough hand, he said, “ God bless you ! 
this is better than a thousand pounds, any 
day !” Mary, in perplexity and agitation, 
asked what he meant, as he dragged her for- 
ward, giving her a gentle push as they both 
came round the haystack which concealed 
Donald from their view. With a scream 
she flew to him, and as they embraced in si- 
lence, a loud cheer rose from the stack, 
which was speedily hushed in silent sobs 
even from the strong men. 

What an evening that was at the manse ! 
If ever Donald heard the falsehood about his 
second marriage, there was no allusion to it 
that night. He had returned to his wife 


Marriage of M iry Campbell. 


2 1 1 


and child with honorable wounds, a Water- 
loo medal, and a pension for life. lie and 
Mary settled down again at the manse for 
many months, and the trump was again 
heard as in the days of yore. 

I will not follow their adventures further, 
beyond stating that they removed to Glas- 
gow ; that Donald died, and was buried 
thirty years ago in the old church yard of 
“ the parish that the daughter was mar- 
ried, but not happily; that Mary fought a 
noble, self-denying battle to support herself 
by her industry, and her army savings, the 
capital of which she has preserved until now. 

When nearly eighty years of age she went 
on a pilgrimage to visit Donald’s grave. 
“ Do you repent marrying him,” I asked her 
on her return, “ and refusing Duncan Stew- 
art ?” “ Repent !” she exclaimed, as her 

fine old face wa3 lighted up with sunshine ; 
“ I would do it all again for the noble fel- 
low ! ” 

Mary yet lives in Glasgow, respected by 
all who know her. 



XI. 

The Grave of Flory Cameron. 

W E might expect to find peculiar types of 
character among a people who pos- 
sessed, as the Highland Celts do, a vivid 
fancy, strong passions, and keen affections ; 
who dwell among scenery of vast extent and 
great sublimity ; who are shut up in their 
secluded valleys, separated even from their 
own little world by mountains and moor- 
lands or stormy arms of the sea ; whose 
memories are full of the dark superstitions 
and wild traditions of the olden time ; and 
who are easily impressed by the mysterious 
sights and sounds created by mists and 
clouds and eerie blasts, among the awful sol- 
itudes of nature ; and who cling with pas- 
sionate fondness to home and family, as to 
the very life and soul of the otherwise desert 


The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


213 


waste around them. But I never met, even 
in the Highlands, with a more remarkable 
example of the influence of race and circum- 
stances than was Flora, or rather Flory 
Cameron. 

Ihe first time I saw her was when going 
to the school of “ the parish,” early on an 
autumnal morning. The school was at- 
tached to the church, and the churchyard 
was consequently near it. The churchyard, 
indeed, with its headstones and flat stones, 
its walled tombs and old ruined church, was 
fully appreciated by us, as an ideal place for 
our joyous games, especially for “ hide and 
seek,” and “I spy.” Even now, in spite of 
all the sadder memories of later years, I can 
hardly think of the spot without calling up 
the blithe face of some boy peering cau- 
tiously over the effigy of an old chief, or 
catching the glimpse of a kilt disappearing 
behind a headstone, or hearing a concealed 
titter beside a memorial of sorrow. 

As I passed the church yard for the first 
time in the sober dawning of that harvest 


214 


A Highland Parish. 


day, I was arrested by seeing the figure of a 
woman wrapt in a Highland plaid, sitting on 
a grave, her head bent and her hands cover- 
ing her face, while her body slowly rocked 
to and fro. Beside her was a Highland ter- 
rier that seemed asleep on the grave. Her 
back was towards me, and I slipped away 
without disturbing her, yet much impressed 
by this exhibition of grief. 

On telling the boys what I had seen, for 
the grave and its mourner were concealed at 
that moment from our view by the old ruin, 
they, speaking in whispers, and with an evi- 
dent feeling of awe or of fear, informed me 
that it was u Flory the witch,” and that she 
and her dog had been there every morning 
since her son had died months before ; and 
that the dog had been a favorite of her son’s, 
and followed the witch wherever she went. 
I soon shared the superstitious fear for Flory 
which possessed the boys ; for, though they 
could not affirm, in answer to my inquiries, 
that she ever travelled through the air on a 
broomstick, or became a hare at her pleas- 


The Grave ofFlory Cameron. 


215 


ure, or had ever been seen dancing with de- 
mons by moonlight in the old church, yet 
one thing was certain, that the man or wom- 
an whom she blessed was blessed indeed, and 
that those whom she cursed were cursed in- 
deed. u Was that really true?” I eagerly 
asked. “ It is as true as death !” replied the 
boy Arcliy Macdonald, shocked by my doubt 
— “ for,” said he, “ did not black Hugh Mac- 
lean strike her boy once at the fair, and did 
she not curse him when he went off to the 
herring fishery ? and wasn’t he and all in the 
boat drowned ? true ! ay, it’s true.” “ And 
did she not curse,” added little Peter M‘Phie 
with vehemence, “ the ground officer for 
turning old Widow McPherson out of her 
house? Was he not found dead under the 
rock ? Some said he had been drunk ; but 
my aunt, who knew all about it, said it was 
because of Flory’s curse, nothing else, and 
that the cruel rascal deserved it too.” And 
then followed many other terrible proofs of 
her power, clinched with the assurance from 
another boy that he had once heard “ the 


2l6 


A Highland Parish 


maister himself say, that he would any day 
far rather have her blessing than her curse.” 

This conversation prepared me to obey 
with fear and trembling a summons which I 
soon afterwards unexpectedly received. Flo- 
ry had one day, unseen by me, crossed the 
playground, when we were too busy to notice 
anything except the ball for which we were 
eagerly contending at our game of shinty. 
She heard that I was at the school, and see- 
ing me, sent a boy to request my presence. 
As I came near her, the other boys stood at a 
respectful distance, watching the interview. 

I put out my hand frankly, though tremb- 
lingl y, to greet her. She seized it, held it 
fast, gazed at my face, and I at hers. What 
she saw in mine I know not, but hers is still 
vividly before me in every line and expres- 
sion. It was in some respects very strange 
and painfully impressive, yet full of affection 
which appeared to struggle with an agon- 
ized look of sorrow that ever and anon 
brought tears down her withered cheeks. 
Her eyes seemed at one time to retire into 


The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


217 


her head, leaving a mere line between the 
eyelashes, like what one sees in a cat when 
in the light ; they then would open slowly, 
and gradually increase until two large black 
orbs beamed on me, and I felt as if they drew 
me into them by a mysterious power. 
Pressing my hand with one of hers, she 
stroked my head fondly, muttering to herself 
all the time, as if in prayer. She then said, 
with deep feeling, “ Oh, thou calf of my 
heart ! my love, my darling, son and grand- 
son of friends, the blessed ! let the blessing 
of the poor, the blessing of the widow, the 
blessing of the heart be on thee, and abide 
with thee, my love, my love.” And then, to 
my great relief, she passed on. In a little 
while she turned and looked at me, and, wa- 
ving a farewell, went tottering on her way, 
followed by the dog. The boys congratulat- 
ed me on my interview, and seemed to think 
I was secure against any bodily harm. I 
think the two parties in our game that day 
competed for my powerful aid. 

I often saw Flory afterwards, and instead 


218 


A Highland Parish. 


of avoiding her, felt satisfaction rather in 
having my hand kissed by her and in receiv- 
ing the blessing, which in some kind form or 
other she often gave. Never, during the au- 
tumn and winter months when I attended 
that Highland school, did she omit visiting 
the grave on which I first saw her. The 
plashing rain fell around her, and the winds 
blew their bitter blast, but there she sat at 
early morning, for a time to weep and pray. 
And even when snow fell, the black form of 
the widow, bent in sorrow, was only more 
clearly revealed. Nor was she ever absent 
from her seat below the pulpit on Sunday. 
Her furrowed countenance with the strange 
and tearful eyes, the white mutch with the 
black ribbon bound tightly round the head, 
the slow rocking motion, with the old, thin, 
and withered body — all are before me though 
forty years have passed since then. 

In after years, the present minister of the 
parish told me more about Flory than I then 
knew. The account given to me by the 
boys at school was to some extent true. She 


The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


219 


was looked upon as a person possessing an 
insight into the character of people and their 
future, for her evil predictions had in many 
cases been fulfilled. She had remarkable 
powers of discernment, and often discovered 
elements of disaster in the recklessness or 
wickedness of those whom she denounced — 
and when these disasters occurred in any 
form, her words were remembered, and her 
predictions attributed to some supernatural 
communications with the evil one. Although 
the violence of her passion was so terrible 
when roused by any act of cruelty or injus- 
tice, that she did not hesitate to pour it forth 
on the objects of her hate, in solemn impre- 
cations expressed in highly- wrought and po- 
etic language, yet Flory herself was never 
known to claim the possession of magic pow- 
ers.* “ She spoke,” she said, “ but the truth, 


* In many Highland parishes — aye, and in Scotch and 
English ones too— there were persons who secretly gave 
charms to cure diseases and prevent injuries to man or 
beast. These charms have come down from Popish 


220 


A Highland Parish. 


and cursed those only who deserved it, and 
had they not all come true?” — Her violent 
passion was her only demon possession. 


times. A woman still lives in the “ parish ” who pos- 
sessed a charm which the minister was resolved to ob- 
tain from her, along with the solemn promise that she 
would never again use it. We understand that if any 
charm is once repeated to and thus possessed by another, 
it cannot, according to the law which regulates those 
powers of darkness, be used again by its original owner. 
It was with some difficulty that the minister at last pre- 
vailed on “ the witch ” to repeat her charm. She did 
so, in a wild glen in which they accidentally met. She 
gave the charm with loud voice, outstretched arm, and 
leaning against the stem of an old pine-tree, wlifle the 
minister quietly copied it into his note-book, as he sat 
on horseback. “ Here it is, minister,” she said, “ and to 
you or your father’s son alone would I give it, and once 
you have it, it will pass my lips no more : — 

“ The charm of God the Great 

The free gift of Mary : 

The free gift of God : 

The free gift of every Priest and Churchman : 

The free gift of Michael the Strong : 

That would put strength in the sun.” 

Yet all this echo of old ecclesiastical thunder "was but 


/ 


The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


221 


Flory was not by any means an object of 
dislike. She was as ardent and vehement 
in her attachments as in her hates, and the 
former were far more numerous than the 
latter. Her sick and afflicted neighbors al- 
ways found in her a sympathising and com- 
forting friend. With that strange inconsis- 
tency by which so much light and darkness, 
good and evil, meet in the same character, 
Flory, to the minister’s knowledge, had 
been the means of doing much good in more 
than one instance by her exhortations and 
her prayers, to those who had been leading 
wicked lives ; while her own life as a wife 
and a mother had been strictly moral and 
exemplary. She had been early left a 
widow, but her children were trained up by 
her to be gentle, obedient, and industrious, 
and she gave them the best education in her 
power. 


“ a charm for sore eyes I” Whether it could have been 
used for greater, if not more useful purposes, I know 
not. 


222 


A Highland Parish. 


But it was God’s will to subdue tbe wild 
and impassioned nature of Flory by a series 
of severe chastisements. When a widow, her 
eldest son, in the full strength of manhood, 
was drowned at sea ; and her only daughter 
and only companion died. One son alone, 
the pride of her heart, and the stay of her 
old age, remained, and to him she clung 
with her whole heart and strength. lie de- 
served, and returned her love. By his in- 
dustry he had raised a sufficient sum of 
money to purchase a boat, for the purpose 
of fishing herring in some of the Highland 
lochs — an investment of capital which in 
good seasons is highly advantageous. All 
the means possessed by Donald Cameron 
were laid out on this boat, and both he and 
his mother felt proud and happyaslielaunch- 
ed it free of debt and was able to call it his 
own. He told his mother that he expected to 
make a little fortune by it, that he would 
then build a house, and get a piece of land, 
and that her old age would be passed under 
his roof in peace and plenty. With many a 


The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


223 


blessing from Flory his boat sailed away. 
But Donald’s partner in the fishing specula- 
tion turned out a cowardly and inefficient 
seaman. The boat was soon wrecked in a 
storm. Donald, by great exertion, escaped 
with his life. He returned to his mother a 
beggar, and so severely injured that he sur- 
vived the wreck of his boat and fortune but 
a few weeks. 

There was not a family in the parish 
which did not share the sorrow of poor 
Flory. 

I have the account of his funeral now be- 
fore me, written by one present, who was so 
much struck by all he saw and heard on that 
occasion that he noted down the circumstan- 
ces at the time. I shall give them in his 
own words : — 

61 When I arrived at the scene of woe, I 
observed the customary preparations had 
been judiciously executed, all under the im- 
mediate superintendence of poor Flory. On 
entering the apartment to which I was con- 


224 


A Highland Parish. 


ducted, she received me with perfect com- 
posure 'and with all that courteous decorum 
of manner so common in her country. Her 
dress she had studiously endeavored to ren- 
der as suitable to the occasion as circumstan- 
ces would permit. She wore a black woollen 
gown of a peculiar, though not unbecoming 
form, and a very broad black riband was 
tightly fastened round her head, evidently 
less with regard to ornament than to the ach- 
ing pain implanted there by accumulated 
suffering. ’ In addressing the schoolmaster, 
who had been assiduous in his parish atten- 
tions towards her, she styled him the 4 Coun- 
sellor of the dying sufferer, the comforter of 
the wounded mourner.’ Another individual 
she addressed as 4 the son of her whose hand 
was bountiful, and whose heart was kind,’ 
and in like manner, in addressing me, she 
alluded very aptly and very feelingly to the 
particular relation in which I then stood to- 
wards her. She then retired with a view of 
attending to the necessary preparations 
amongst the people assembled without the 


The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


225 


house. After a short interval, however, she 
returned, announcing that all was in readi- 
ness for completing the melancholy work for 
which we had convened. Here she seemed 
much agitated. Her lips, and even her 
whole frame seemed to quiver with emotion. 
At length, however, she recovered her form- 
er calmness, and stood motionless and pen- 
sive until the coffin was ready to he carried 
to the grave. She was then requested to 
take her station at the head of the coffin, and 
the black cord attached to it was extended 
to her. She seized it for a moment, and then 
all self-possession vanished. Casting it from 
her, she rushed impetuously forward, and 
clasping her extended arms around the coffin, 
gave vent to all her accumulated feelings in 
the accents of wildest despair. As the 
procession slowly moved onwards, she nar- 
rated in a sort of measured rhythm her own 
sufferings, eulogised the character of her son, 
and then, alas ! uttered her wrath against 
the man to whose want of seamanship she at- 
tributed his death. I would it were in my 
8 


226 


A Highland Parish. 


power to convey lier sentiments as they were 
originally expressed. But though it is im- 
possible to convey them in their pathos and 
energy, I shall endeavor to give a part of her 
sad and bitter lamentation by a literal trans- 
lation of her words. Her first allusion was 
to her own sufferings. 


“ Alas ! alas ! woe’s me, wliat shall I do ? 

Without husband, without brother, 

Without substance, without store ; 

A son in the deep, a daughter in her grave, 

The son of my love on his bier — 

Alas ! alas ! woe’s me, what shall I do ? 

“ Son of my love, plant of beauty, 

Thou art cut low in thy loveliness ; 

Who’ll now head the party at their games on the 
plains of Artornish ? 

The swiftest of foot is laid low. 

Had I thousands of gold on the sea-covered rock, 

I w T ould leave it all and save the son of my love. 

But the son of my love is laid low — 

Alas ! alas ! woe’s me, what shall I do ? 

I 

“Land of curses is this ! — where I lost my family and 
my friends, 


The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


227 


My kindred and my store, 

Thou art a land of curses for ever to me — 

Alas ! alas ! woe’s me, what shall I do ? 

“ And, Duncan, thou grandson of Malcolm, . 

Thou wert a meteor of death to me ; 

Thine hand could not guide the helm as the hand of 
my love. 

But, alas ! the stem of beauty is cut down, 

I am left alone in the world, 

Friendless and childless, houseless and forlorn — 

Alas ! alas 1 woe’s me, what shall I do? 

“ Whilst she chanted forth these and simi- 
lar lamentations, the funeral procession ar- 
rived at the place of interment, which was 
only about a mile removed from her cottage. 
The grave was already dng. It extended 
across ait old gothic arch of peculiar beauty 
and simplicity. Under this arch Flory sat 
for some moments in pensive silence. The 
coffin was placed in the grave, and when it 
had been adjusted with all due care, the at- 
tendants were about to proceed to cover it. 
Here, however, they were interrupted. Flory 
arose, and motioning to the obsequious 
crowd to retire, she slowly descended into 


228 


A Highland Parish. 


the hollow grave, placed herself in an atti- 
tude of devotion, and continued for some 
time engaged in prayer to the Almighty. 

“ The crowd of attendants had retired to a 
little distance, but being in some degree 
privileged, or at least considering myself so, 
I remained leaning upon a neighboring 
grave-stone as near to her as I could without 
rudely intruding upon such great sorrow. I 
was, however, too far removed to hear dis- 
tinctly the words which she uttered, espec- 
ially as they were articulated in a low and 
murmuring tone of voice. The concluding 
part of her address was indeed more audibly 
given, and I heard her bear testimony with 
much solemnity to the fact that her departed 
son had never provoked her to wrath, and 
had ever obeyed her commands. She then 
paused for a few moments, seemingly anxious 
to tear herself away, but unable to do so. At 
length she mustered resolution, and after im- 
pressing three several kisses on the coffin, 
she was about to rise. But she found herself 
again interrupted. The clouds which had 


. The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


229 


been lowering were now dispelled, and just 
as slie was slowly ascending from the grave, 
the sun burst forth in full splendor from be- 
hind the dark mist that had hitherto obscured 
its rays. She again prostrated herself, this 
time under the influence of a superstitious 
belief still general in the Highlands, that 
sunshine upon such occasions augurs well for 
the future happiness of the departed. She 
thanked God 4 that the sky w~as clear and se- 
rene when the child of her love was laid in 
the dust.’ She then at length arose, and re- 
sumed her former position under the old 
archway, which soon re-echoed the ponder- 
ous sound of the falling earth upon the hol- 
low coffin. 

“ It was indeed a trying moment to her. 
With despair painted on her countenance, 
she shrieked aloud in bitter anguish, and 
wrung her withered hands with convulsive 
violence. I tried to comfort her, but she 
would not be comforted. In this full parox 
ysm of her grief, however, one of the persons 
in attendance approached her. 4 Tears,’ 


230 


A Highland Parish. 


said her friend, ‘ cannot bring back the dead. 
It is the will of Heaven — yon must submit.’ 

6 Alas !’ replied Flory, 4 the words of the lips 
— the words of the lips are easily given, but 
they heal not the broken heart !’ The of- 
fered consolation, however, was effectual 
thus far, that it recalled the mourner to her- 
self, and led her to subdue for the time every 
violent emotion. She again became alive to 
everything around, and gave the necessary 
directions to those who were engaged in cov- 
ering up the grave. Her directions were 
given with unfaltering voice, and were obey- 
ed by the humane neighbors with unhesitat- 
ing submission. On one occasion indeed, 
and towards the close of the obsequies, she 
assumed a tone of high authority. It was 
found that the turf which had been prepared 
for covering the grave was insufficient for the 
purpose, and one of the attendants not quite 
so fastidious as his countrymen, who in such 
cases suffer not the smallest inequality to ap- 
pear, proposed that the turf should be 
lengthened by adding to it. The observation * 


The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


231 


did not escape her notice. Flory fixed her 
piercing eye upon him that uttered it, and 
after gazing at him for some moments with 
hitter scorn, slio indignantly exclaimed, 
“ Who talks of patching up the grave of my 
son ? Get you gone ! cut a green sod 
worthy of my beloved.” This imperative 
order was instantly obeyed. A suitable 
turf was procured, and the grave was at 
length covered up to the entire satisfaction 
of all parties. She now arose, and returned 
to her desolate abode, supported by two 
aged females, almost equally infirm with her- 
self, and followed by her dog. 

“ But Flory Cameron did not long remain 
inactive under suffering. With the aid of 
her good friend, the parish schoolmaster, 
she settled, with scrupulous fidelity, all her 
son’s mercantile transactions ; and with apart 
of the very small reversion of money accru- 
ing to herself she purchased a neat freestone 
slab, which she has since erected as the 
‘ Tribute of a widowed mother to the mem 
ory of a dutiful son.’ Nor has her atten- 


2 3 2 


A Highland Parish. 


tion been limited to tlie grave of her son. 
Her wakeful thoughts seem to have been the 
subject of her midnight dreams. In one of 
the visions of the night, as she herself 
expressed it, her daughter appeared to her, 
saying, that she had honored a son and 
passed over a daughter. The hint was taken. 
Her little debts were collected ; another slab 
was provided on which to record the name 
and merits of a beloved daughter ; and to 
his honor I mention it, that a poor mason 
employed in the neighborhood entered so 
warmly into the feeling by which Flory was 
actuated that he gave his labor gratuitously 
in erecting this monument of parental affec- 
tion. But though the violence of her emo- 
tion subsided, Flory Cameron’s . grief long 
remained. In church, where she was a reg- 
ular attendant, every allusion to family 
bereavement subdued her, and often, when 
that simple melody arose in which her de- 
parted son was wont very audibly to join, 
she used to sob bitterly, uttering with a low 
tone of voice, ‘ Sweet was the voice of my 


The Grave of Flory Cameron. 


2 33 


love in the house of God.’ Frequently I 
have met her returning from the bury in g- 
ground at early dawn and at evening twi- 
light, accompanied by her little dog, once 
the constant attendant of her son ; and whilst 
I stood conversing with her I have seen the 
daisy which she had picked from the grave 
of her beloved, carefully laid up in her 
bosom. But her grief is now assuaged. 
Affliction at length tamed the wildness of 
her nature, and subdued her into a devo- 
tional frame. She ceased to look for earthly 
comfort, but found it in Christ. She often 
acknowledged to me with devout submission 
that the Lord, as He gave, had a right to 
take away, and that she blessed His name ; 
and that as every tie that bound her to earth 
had been severed, her thoughts rose more 
habitually to the home above, where God 
her Father would at last free her from sin 
and sorrow and unite her to her dear ones.” 

Flory continued to visit the grave of her 
children as long as her feeble steps could 
carry her thither. But her strength soon 


234 


A Highland Parish. 


failed, and she was confined to her poor hut. 
One morning, the neighbors, attracted by 
the howling of her dog, and seeing no 
smoke from her chimney, entered unbidden, 
and found Flory dead and lying as if in calm 
slee] in her poor bed. Iler body was laid 
with her children, beneath the old arch. 



y> 



XII. 

The “ Fools.” 

TVTO one attempting to describe from per- 
il somil knowledge the characteristics of 
Highland life,, can omit some mention, in 
memoriam, of the fools. It must indeed be 
admitted that the term “ fool” is ambiguous, 
and embraces individuals in all trades, pro- 
fessions, and ranks ot society. But those I 
have in my mind "were not so injurious to 
society, nor so stupid and disagreeable, as the 
large class commonly called “ fools.” Nor is 
the true type of u fool,” a witless idiot like 
the Cretin, nor a raving madman, fit only 
for Bedlam but “ a pleasant fellow i’ faith, 
with his brains somewhat in disorder.” 

I do not know whether “ fools” are held 
in such high estimation in the Highlands as 
they used to be in that time which we call 


236 


A Highland Parish, 


u our day.” It may be that the Poor Laws 
have banished them to the calm and soothing 
retreat of the workhouse ; or that the moral 
and intellectual education of the people by 
government pupils, and Queen’s scholars, 
have rendered them incapable of being 
amused by any abnormal conditions of the 
intellect ; but I am obliged to confess that 
I have always had a foolish weakness for 
“ fools ” — a decided sympathy with them — 
and that they occupy a very fresh and pleas- 
ing portion of my reminiscences of “ the Par- 
ish.” 

The Highland “ fool” was the special prop- 
erty of the district in which he lived. He 
was not considered a burthen upon the com- 
munity, but a privilege to them. lie wan- 
dered at his own sweet will wherever he 
pleased, “ ower the muir amang and 
heather ; ” along highways, and bye- ways 
with no let or hindrance from parish beadles, 
rural police, or poor-law authorities. 

Every one knew the “ fool,” and liked him 
as a sort of protege of the public. Every 


The “Fools.” 


237 


house was open to him, though he had his fa- 
vorite places of call. But he was too wise to 
call as a fashionable formal visitor, merely to 
leave his card and depart if his friend was 
‘•not at home.” The temporary absence of 
landlord or landlady made little difference 
to him. He came to pay a visit, to enjoy 
the society of his friends, and to remain with 
them for days, perhaps for weeks, possibly 
for months even. lie was sure to be wel- 
comed, and never churled or sent away un- 
til he chose to depart. Hay, he was often 
coaxed to prolong the agreeable visit which 
was intended as a compliment to the family, 
and which the family professed to accept as 
such. It was, therefore, quite an event when 
some rare fool arrived, illustrious for his wit. 
Ilis appearance was hailed by all in the 
establishment, from the shepherds, herds, 
workmen, and domestic servants, up to the 
heads of the family, with their happy boys 
and girls. The news spread rapidly from the 
kitchen to the drawing-room — “ 4 Calum,’ 
‘ Archy,’ or 4 Duncan ’ fool, is come !” and all 


238 


A Highland Parish. 


would gather round him to djaw forth his 
peculiarities. 

It must he remembered that the Highland 

<D 

kitchen, which was the “ fool’s ” stage, his 
reception and levee room, and which was 
cheered at night by his brilliant conversa- 
tion, was like no similar culinary establish- 
ment, except, perhaps, that in the old Irish 
house. The prim model of civilised propri- 
ety, with its pure well-washed floors and 
whitewashed walls, its glittering pans, burn- 
ished covers, clean tidy fireside with roasting- 
jack, oven and hot plate, a sort of cooking 
drawing-room, an artistic studio for roasts 
and boils, was utterly unknown in the genu 
ine Highland mansion of a former genera- 
tion. The Highland kitchen had, no doubt, 
its cooking apparatus, its enormous pot that 
was hung from its iron chain amidst the reek 
in the great chimney; its pans embosomed 
in glowing peats, and whatever other instru- 
mentality (possibly an additional peat fire on 
the floor) was required to prepare savory 
joints, with such barn-door dainties as ducks 


The <€ Fools.’ 


2 39 


and liens, turkeys and geese — all supplied 
from the farm in such quantities as would 
terrify the modern cook and landlady if re- 
quired to provide them daily from the mar- 
ket. The cooking of the Highland kitchen 
was also a continued process, like that on a 
passenger steamer on a long voyage. Differ- 
ent classes had to he served at different peri- 
ods of the day, from early dawn till night. 
There were, therefore, huge pots of superb 
potatoes “laughing in their skins,” and as 
huge pots of porridger poured into immense 
wooden dishes, with the occasional dinner 
luxury of Braxy — a species of mutton which 
need not he too minutely inquired into. 
These supplies were disposed of by the fre- 
quenters of the kitchen, dairymaids and all 
sorts of maids, with shepherds, farmservanU 
male and female, and herds full of fun and 
grimace, and by a constant supply of stran- 
gers, with a beggar and probably a “ fool ” 
at the side-table. The kitchen was thus a 
sort of caravanserai, in which crowds of men 
and women, accompanied by sheep dogs and 


240 


A Highland Parish. 


terriers, came and went ; and into whose pre- 
cincts ducks, hens and turkeys strayed as of- 
ten as they could pick up debris. The world 
in the drawing-room was totally separated 
from this world in the kitchen. The gentry 
in “ the room ” were supposed to look down 
upon it as on things belonging to another 
sphere, governed by its own laws and cus- 
toms, with which they had no wish to inter- 
fere. And thus it was that “ waifs ” and 
“ fools ” came to the kitchen and fed there, 
as a matter of course, ‘having a bed in the 
barn at night. All passers by got their “ bite 
and sup ” in it readily and cheerfully. Ser- 
vants’ wages were nominal, and food was 
abundant from moor and loch, sea and land. 
To do justice to the establishment I ought to 
mention that connected with the kitchen 
there was generally a room called “ the Ser- 
vant’s Hall,” where the more distinguished 
strangers — such as u the post ” or packman, 
with perhaps the tailor or shoemaker when 
these were necessarily resident for some 
weeks in the House — took their meals along 


The « Fools.” 


241 


with the housekeeper and more “ genteel ” 
servants. 

I have, perhaps ^given the impression that 
these illustrious visitants, the “ fools,” be- 
longed to that Parish merely in which the 
houses that they frequented were situated. 
This was not the case. The fool was quite a 
cosmopolitan. He wandered like a wild 
bird over a large tract of country, though he 
had favorite nests and places of refuge. His 
selection of these was judiciously made ac- 
cording to the comparative merits of the 
treatment which he received from his many 
friends. I have known some cases in which 
the attachment became so great between the 
fool and the household that a hut was built 
and furnished for his permanent use. From 
this he could wander abroad when he wished 
a change of air or of society. Many families 
had their fool — their Wamba or jester — who 
made himself not only amusing but useful, 
by running messages and doing out-of-the- 
way jobs requiring little wit but often strength 
and time. 


242 


A Highland Parish. 


As far as my knowledge goes, or my 
memory serves me, the treatment of these 
Parish characters was most benevolent. 
Any teasing or annoyance which they receiv- 
ed detracted slightly, if at all, from the sum 
of their happiness. It was but the friction 
which elicited their sparks and crackling fun ; 
accordingly the boys round the fire-side at 
night could not resist applying it, nor their 
elders from enjoying it ; while the peculiar 
claims of the fool to be considered lord or 
king, admiral or general, an eight-day clock 
or brittle glass, were cheerfully acquiesced 
in. Few men with all their wits about them 
could lead a more free or congenial life than 
the Highland fool with his wit only. 

One of the most distinguished fools of my 
acquaintance was “ Allan-nan-Con,” or Allan 
of the Dogs. He had been drafted as a sol- 
dier, but owing to some breach of military 
etiquette on his part, when under inspection 
by Sir Ralph Abercromby, he was condemn- 
ed as a fool, and immediately sent home. 1 
must admit that Allan’s subsequent career 


• The “Fools.” 


243 

fully confirmed the correctness of Sir Ralph’s 
judgment. His peculiarity was his love of 
dogs. He wore a long loose great-coat bound 
round his waist by a rope. The great-coat 
bagged over the rope, and within its loose 
and warm recesses a number of pups nestled 
while on his journey, so that his waist always 
seemed to be in motion. The parent dogs, 
four or five in number, followed on foot, and 
always in a certain order of march, and any 
straggler or undisciplined cur not keeping 
his own place received sharp admonition 
from Allan’s long pike-staff. His head-dress 
was a large Highland bonnet, beneath which 
appeared a small sharp face, with bright eyes 
and thin-lipped mouth full of sarcasm and 
humor. Allan spent his nights often among 
the hills. “ My house,” he used to say, t “ is 
where the sun sets.” He managed, on retir- 
ing to rest, to arrange his dogs round his 
body so as to receive the greatest benefit 
from their warmth. Their training was the 
great object of his life ; and his pupils would 
have astonished any government inspector 


A Highland Parish. 


244 

by their prompt obedience to their master s 
commands and their wonderful knowledge 
of the Gaelic language. 

I remember on one occasion when Allan 
was about to leave “ the Manse,” he put his 
dogs, for my amusement, through some of 
their drill , as he called it. They were all 
sleeping round the kitchen fire, the pups 
freed from the girdle, and wandering at lib- 
erty, when Allan said, “ Go out, one of my 
children, and let me know if the day is fair 
or wet.” A dog instantly rose, while the 
others kept their places, and with erect tail 
went out. Returning, it placed itself by Al- 
lan’s side, so that he might by passing his hand 
along its back discoverer whether it was wet 
or dry ! “ Go,” he again said, “and tell that 

foolish child ’’—one of the pups— “ who is 
frolicking outside of the house, to come in.’ 
Another dog rose, departed, and returned 
wagging his tail and looking up to Allan s 
face. “ Oh he won’t come, won’t he ? Then go 
and bring him in, and if necessary by force ! ’ 
The dog again departed, but this time 


The " Fools.” 


245 


carried the yelping pup in his month, and 
laid it at Allan’s feet. “Now, . my dear 
-children, let us be going,” said Allan, rising, 
as if to proceed on his journoy. But at this 
moment two terriers began to fight, — though 
it seemed a mimic battle, — while an old sa- 
gacious-looking collie never moved ftom his 
comfortable place beside the fire. To under- 
stand this scene, though, you must know 
that Allan had taken offence at the excellent 
sheriff of the district because of his having 
refused him some responsible situation on 
his property, and to revenge himself had 
trained his dogs to act the drama which was 
now in progress. Addressing the appar- 
ently sleeping dog, whom he called “ the 
Sheriff,” he said, u There you lie, you lazy 
dog, enjoying yourself when the laws are 
breaking by unseemly disputes and fights ! 
But what care you if you get your meat and 
drink ! Shame upon you, Sheriff. It seems 
that I even must teach you your duty. Get 
up this moment, sir, or I shall bring my 
staff down on your head, and make these 


246 A Highland Parish. 

wicked dogs keep the peace ! ” In an in- 
stant “ the Sheriff ” rose and separated the 
combatants. 

It was thus that, when any one offended 
Allan past all possibility of forgiveness, lie 
immediately trained one of the dogs to illus- 
trate his character, and taught it lessons, by 
which in every house he could turn his sup- 
posed enemy into ridicule. A farmer, irri- 
tated by this kind of dogmatic intolerance, 
ordered Allan to leave his farm. “ Leave it, 
forsooth ! ” replied Allan, with a sarcastic 
sneer. “ Could I possibly, sir, take it with 
me, be assured I would do so rather than 
leave it to you ! ” 

When Allan was dying he called his dogs 
beside him, and told them to keep him warm, 
as the chill of death was coming over him. 
He then bade them farewell, as his “ chil- 
dren and best friends,” and hoped they would 
find a master who would take care of them 
and teach them as he had done. The old 
woman, in whose hut the poor fool lay, com- 
forted him by telling him how, according to 


247 


The “ Fools.” 

the humane belief of her country, all whom 
God had deprived of reason were sure to go 
to heaven, and that he would soon he there. 
“ I don’t know very well,” said Allan, with 
his last breath, “ where I am going, as I 
never travelled far ; but if it is possible, I will 
come back for my dogs ; and, mind you,” he 
added, with emphasis, “ to punish the Sher- 
iff, for refusing me that situation ! ” 

Another most entertaining fool was Don- 
ald Cameron. Donald was never more bril- 
liant than when narrating his submarine 
voyages, and his adventures, as he walked 
along the bottom of the sea passing from is- 
land to island. He had an endless variety 
of stories about the wrecks which he visited 
in the caverns of the deep, and above all of 
his interviews with the fish, small and great, 
wdiom he met during his strange voyages, or 
journeys, rather. “ On one occasion,” I re- 
member his telling me with great earnest- 
ness, as we sat together fishing from a rock, 
“ I was sadly put about, my boy, when com- 
ing from the island of Tyree. Ha ! lia ! ha 


248 


A Highland Parish. 


It makes me laugh to think of it now, though 
at the time it was very vexing. It was very 
stormy weather, and the walking was diffi- 
cult, and the road long. I at last became 
hungry, and looked out for some hospitable 
house where I could find rest and refresh- 
ment. I was fortunate enough to meet a 
turbot, an old acquaintance, who invited me, 
most kindly, to a marriage party which was 
that day to be in his family. The marriage 
was between a daughter of his own, and a 
well-to-do flounder. So I went with the de- 
cent fellow, and entered a fine house of 
shells and tangle, most beautiful to see. 
The dinner came, and it was all one could 
wish. There was plenty, I assure you, to 
eat and drink, for the turbot had a large fish- 
ing bank almost to himself to ply his trade 
on, and he was too experienced to be cheated 
by the hook of any fisherman, Highland or 
Lowland. He had also been very industri- 
ous, as indeed were all his family. So he 
had good means. But as we sat down to 
our feast, and my mouth was watering — 


The “ Fools.” 


249 


just as I had the bountiful board under my 
nose, who should come suddenly upon us 
with a rush, but a, tremendous cod, that was 
angry because the turbot’s daughter had ac- 
cepted a poor thin, flat flounder, instead of 
his own eldest son, a tine red-rock cod. The 
savage, rude brute gave such a fillip with 
his tail against the table, that it upset ; and 
what happened, my dear, but that the tur- 
bot, with all the guests, flounders, skate, 
haddock, and whiting, thinking, I suppose, 
that it was a sow of the ocean (a whale), 
rushed away in a fright ; and I can tell you, 
calf of my heart, that when I myself saw the 
eod’s big head and mouth and staring eyes, 
with his red gills going like a pair of fanners, 
and when I got a touch of his tail, I was 
glad to be off with the rest ; so I took to my 
heels, and escaped among the long tangle. 
Pfui ! what a race of hide and seek that was ! 
Fortunately for me I was near the point of 
Ardnamurchan, where I landed in safety, 
and got to Donald M‘Laehlan’s house wet 
and weary. Wasn’t that an adventure? 


250 


A High'and Parish. 


And now,” concluded my friend, “ I’ll put 
on, with your leave, a very large bait of 
cockles on my hook, and perhaps I may 
catch some of that rascally cod’s descen- 
dants ! ” 

“ Barefooted Lachlan,” another Parish 
worthy, was famous as a swimmer. He 
lived for hours in the water, and alarmed 
more than one boat’s crew, who perceived a 
mysterious object — it might be the sea-ser- 
pent — a mile or two from the shore, now ap- 
pearing like a large seal, and again causing 
the water to foam with gambols like those of 
a much larger animal. They cautiously 
drew near, and saw with wonder what 
seemed to be the body of a human being 
floating on the surface of the water. With 
greatest caution an oar was slowly moved 
towards it ; but just as the supposed dead 
body was touched, the eyes, hitherto shut, in 
order to keep up the intended deception, 
would suddenly open, and with a lpud shout 
and laugh, Lachlan would attempt to seize 


The “Fools.” 


251 


the oar, to the terror and astonishment of 
those who were ignorant of his fancies. 

The belief in his swilnming powers — which 
in truth were wonderful — became so exag- 
gerated that his friends, even when out of 
sight of land, would not have been surprised 
to have been hailed and boarded by him. If 
any unusual appearance was seen on the sur- 
face of the water along the coast of the Par- 
ish, and rowers paused to consider whether 
it was a play of fish or a pursuing whale, it 
was not unlikely that one of them would 
at last say, as affording the most probable 
solution, “ I believe myself it is Barefooted 
* Lachlan !” 

Poor Lachlan had become so accustomed 
to this kind of fishy existence that he attach- 
ed no more value to clothes than a merman 
does. He looked upon them as a great prac- 
tical grievance. To wear them on his aquatic 
excursions was at once unnecessary and in- 
convenient, and to be obliged, despite of 
tides and winds, to return from a distant 
swimming excursion to the spot on the shore 


A Highland Parish. 


252 

where they had been left, was to him an in- 
tolerable bore. A tattered shirt and kilt 
were not worth all this trouble. In adjust- 
ing his wardrobe to meet the demands of 
the sea, it must be confessed that Lachlan 
forgot the fair demands of the land. So- 
ciety at last rebelled against his judgment, 
and the poor-law authorities having been 
appealed to, were compelled to try the ex- 
pensive but necesssary experiment of 
boarding Lachlan in a pauper asylum in 
the Lowlands, rather than permit him to 
wander about unadorned as a fish out of 
water. When he landed at the Breomie- 
law, and saw all its brilliant gas lights, 9 
and beheld for the first time in his life a 
great street with houses which seemed pal- 
aces, he whispered with a smile to his keep- 
ers, “ Surely this is heaven ! am I right ?” 
But when he passed onward to his asylum, 
through the railway tunnel with its smoke 
and noise, he trembled with horror, de- 
claring that now, alas ! he was in the 
lower regions and lost forever. The swim- 


The “ Fools. 


253 


mer did not prosper when deprived of his 
long freedom among the winds and waves 
of Ocean, but died in a few days after enter- 
ing the well-regulated home provided for 
his comfort by law. Had it not been for his 
primitive taste in clothes, and his want of 
appreciation of any better or more complete 
covering than his tanned skin afforded, I 
would have protested against confining him 
in a workhouse as a cruel and needless in- 
carceration, and pleaded for him as Words- 
worth did for his Cumberland beggar : 


As in the eye of Nature he has lived, 

So in the eye of Nature let him die ! 

While engaged m the unusual task of 
writing the biographies of fools, I cannot for- 
get one who, though not belonging to “ the 
Parish,” was better known perhaps than any 
other in the W estern Highlands. This man 
I speak of was “ Gillespie Aotrom,” or 
i% light-headed Arehy,” of the Isle of Skye. 
Archy was perhaps the most famous charac- 
ter of his day in that island. When I made 


A Highland Parish. 


254 

liis acquaintance a quarter of a century ago, 
lie was eighty years of age, and had been a 
notorious and much-admired fool during all 
that peri6d — from the time, at least, in 
which he had first babbled folly at his 
mother’s knee. Arcliy, though a public 
beggar, possessed excellent manners. He 
was welcomed in every house in Skye ; and 
if the landlord had any appreciation of wit, 
or if Iiq was afraid of being made the subject 
of some sarcastic song or witty epigram, he 
was suie to ask Archy into the dining-room 
after dinner, to enjoy his racy conversation. 
The fool never on such occasions betrayed 
the slightest sense of being patronised, but 
made his bow, sat down, and was ready to 
engage in any war of joke or repartee, and to 
sing some inimitable songs, which hit off 
with rare cleverness the infirmities and frail- 
ties of the leading people of the island— es- 
pecially the clergy. Some of the clergy 
and gentry happened to be so sensitive to 
the power and influence of this fool’s wit, 
which was sure to be repeated at “ kirk and 


The "Fools.” 


2 55 


market,” t'liat it was alleged they paid liim 
black-mail in meat and money to keep him 
quiet, or obtain his favor. Archy’s practical 
jokes were as remarkable as his sayings. 
One of these jokes I must narrate. An old 
acquaintance of mine, a minister in Skye, 
who possessed the kindest disposition and an 
irreproachable moral character, was some- 
what more afraid of Archy’s sharp tongue 
and witty rhymes than most of his brethren. 
Arcliy seemed to have detected intuitively his 
weak point, and though extremely fond of 
the parson, yet often played upon his good- 
nature with an odd mixture of fun and sel- 
fishness. On the occasion I refer to, Archy 
in his travels, arrived on a cold night at the 
manse when all its inmates were snug in bed, 
and the parson himself was snoring loud be- 
side his mate. A thundering knock at the 
door awakened him, and thrusting his white 
head, enveloped in a thick white nightcap, 
out of the window, he at once recognized the 
tall, well-known form of Archy. u Is this 
you, Archy ? Oich, . oich ! what do you 


256 


A Highland Parish. 


want, my good friend, at this hour of the 
night?” blandly asked the old minister. 
“ What could a man want at such an hour, 
most reverend friend,” replied the rogue, 
with a polite bow, “but his supper and his 
bed ?” “ You shall have both, good Archy,” 

said the parson, though wishing Archy on 
the other side of the Coolins. Dressing him- 
self in his home-made flannel unmentionables, 
and throwing a shepherd’s plaid over his 
shoulders, he descended and admitted the 
fool. lie then provided a sufficient supper 
for him in the form of a large supply of bread 
and cheese, with a jug of milk. During the 
repast Archy told his most recent gossip and 
merriest stories, concluding by a request for 
a bed. “ You shall have the best in the par- 
ish, good Archy, take my word for it !” quoth 
the old dumpy and most amiable minister. 

The bed alluded to was the liay-loft over 
the stable, which could be approached by a 
ladder only. The minister adjusted the lad- 
der and begged Archy to ascend. Archy 
protested against the .rudeness. “ You call 


The “ Fools.” 


2 57 


that, do you, one of the best beds in Skye ? 
You, a minister, say so ? On such a cold 
night as this, too ? You dare to say this to 
me ! ” The old man, all alone, became 
afraid of the gaunt fool as he lifted his huge 
stick with energy. But had any one been 
able to see clearly Archy’s face, they would 
have easily discovered a malicious twinkle 
in his eye betrayed some plot which he had 
been concocting probably all day. “ I do 
declare, Archy,” said the parson, earnestly, 
“ that a softer, cleaner, snugger bed exists 
not in Skye ! ” “I am delighted,” said 
Archy, “ to hear it, minister, and must be- 
lieve it since you say so. But do you know it 
is the custom in our country for a landlord 
to show his guest into his sleeping apart- 
ment, isn’t it ? and so I expect you to go up 
before me to my room, and just see if all is 
right and comfortable. Please ascend ! ” 
Partly from fear and partly from a wish to 
get back to his own bed as soon as possible, 
and out of the cold of a sharp north wind, 
the simple-hearted old man complied with 
9 


2 ;8 


A Highland Parish. 


Archy’s wish. With difficulty waddling up 
the ladder, he entered the hay-loft. When 
his white rotund body again appeared, as he 
formally announced to his distinguished 
guest how perfectly comfortable the resting- 
place provided for him was, the ladder, alas ! 
had been removed, while Archy calmly re- 
marked, “ I am rejoiced to hear what you 
say ! I don’t doubt a word of it. If it is so 
comfortable a bedroom, though, you will have 
no objection, I am sure, to spend the night 
in it. Good night, then, my much-respected 
friend, and may you have as good a sleep 
and as pleasant dreams as you wished me to 
enjoy.” So saying, he made a profound bow 
and departed with the ladder over bis 
shoulder. But after turning the corner and 
listening with fits of suppressed laughter to 
the minister’s loud expostulations and earn- 
est entreaties — for never had he preached a 
more energetic sermon, or one more from his 
heart — and when the joke afforded the full 
enjoyment which was anticipated, Archy re- 
turned with the ladder, advising the parson 


The « Fools.” 


2S9 


never to tell fibs about his fine bed-rooms 
again, but to give what he had without im- 
posing upon strangers, lie let him descend to 
the ground, while he himself ascended to the 
place of rest in the loft. 

Arcliy’s description of the whole scene was 
ever afterwards one of his best stories, to the 
minister’s great annoyance. 

A friend of mine met Archy on the high- 
way, and, wishing to draw him out, asked 
his opinion of several travellers as they 
passed. The first was a very tali man. 
Archy remarked that he had never seen any 
man before so near heaven ! Of another he 
said that he had “ the sportsman’s eye and 
the soldier’s step,” which was singularly true 
in its description. 

A Skye laird who was fond of trying a 
pass of arms with Archy, met him' one day 
gnawing a bone. “ Shame on you, Archy,” 
“ why do you gnaw a bone in that way ? ” 
‘‘And to what use, sir,” asked Archy in re- 
ply, “ would you have me put it % ” “I ad- 
vise you,” said the laird, “to throw it in 


260 


A Highland Parish. 


charity to the first dog you meet.” <£ Is that 
your advice ? then I throw it to yourself!” 
said Archy, shying the bone at the laird’s 
feet. 

While correcting these sheets, an old wo- 
man from Skye, now in Glasgow, and 
who knew Archy well, has repeated to me 
the words which he never failed to use with 
reverence as his grace before meat. They 
seem to contain some allusion to the sin of 
the evil eye, so much feared and hated by 
the old Highlanders. I translate them liter- 
ally : — 

May my heart always bless my eyes ; 

And my eyes bless all they see ; 

And may I always bless my neighbor 

Though my neighbors should never bless me. Amen. 

By this time I fear that my sedate and 
wise readers will conclude that a sympathy 
with fools comes very naturally to me. I 
must bow my head to the implied rebuke. 
It is, 1 know, a poor defence to make for my 
having indulged, however briefly, in such 


The " Fools.” 


2 6; 


biographies, that the literary world has pro- 
duced many longer ones of greater fools less 
innocent of crime, less agreeable, and less 
beneficial to society, than those which I have 
so imperfectly recorded among my reminis- 
cences of the old Highlands.* 

But lest any one should imagine for a mo 
ment that I treat lightly the sutferings of 
those deprived of God’s highest gift of rea 
son, let me say that my fools were generally 
strong and healthy in body, and in many 
cases, as I have already hinted, took a share 
in farm- work, boating, fishing, &c., and that 
their treatment was most humane and be- 


* Since writing the above, I have heard of a distin- 
guished general officer who left the Highlands in his 
youth, but returned a short time ago to visit his early 
home. “ Will you believe me,” he said, with great 
seriousness and naivete , to my informant, “ when I tell 
yon that among many things so long associated with 
my faithful remembrances that have passed away, and 
which I miss much— are— are— pray don’t laugh at me 
when I confess it— are my old friends the fools ! ” I 
heartily sympathise with the general ! 


262 


A Highland Parish. 


nevolent. At the same time I do not forget 
another very different class, far lower in the 
scale of humanity, which, owing to many cir- 
cumstances that need not he detailed here, 
was a very large one in the Highlands: — 
creatures weak in body and idiotic in mind, 
who in spite of the tenderest affection on 
the part of their poor parents, were yet mis- 
erable objects for which no adequate relief 
existed. Such cases indeed occur every- 
where throughout the kingdom to a greater 
extent than, I think, most people are aware 
of. Those idiots are sometimes apparently 
little removed above the beasts that perish, 
yet they nevertheless possess a Divine na- 
ture never wholly extinguished, which is ca- 
pable of being developed to a degree far be- 
yond what the most sanguine could antici- 
pate who have not seen what wise, patient, 
benevolent and systematic education is ca- 
pable of accomplishing. The coin with the 
King’s image on it, though lying in the dust 
with the royal stamp almost obliterated, may 
yet be found again and marvellously cleansed 


The “ Foob.” 


263 


and polished ! I therefore hail asylums for 
idiot children as among the most blessed 
fruits of Christian civilisation. Though, 
strange to say, they are but commencing 
among us, yet I believe the day is near when 
they will be recognised as among the most 
needed, most successful, and most blessed 
institutions of our country. 




XIII. 

The Schoolmaster. 

T HE Parish Schoolmaster of the past be- 
longed to a class of men and to an insti' 
tntion peculiar to Scotland. Between him 
and the Parish clergymen there was a close 
alliance formed by many links. The homes 
and incomes of both, though of very unequal 
value, were secured by Act of Parliament, 
and provided by the heritors of the Parish. 
Both held their appointments for life, and 
could be deprived of them only for heresy or 
imorality, and that by the same kind of for- 
mal “ libel,” and trial before the same 
ecclesiastical court. Both were members of 
the same church, and had to subscribe the 
same confession of faith ; both might have 
attended the same university, nay, passed 


The Schoolmaster. 265 

through the same curriculum of eight years 
of preparatory study. 

The Schoolmaster was thus a sort of pro- 
bendiary or minor canon in the Parish cath- 
edral — a teaching presbyter and coadjutor to 
his preaching brother. In many cases “ the 
master” was possessed of very considerable 
scholarship and culture, and was invariably 
required to be able to prepare young men 
for Scotch universities, by instructing them 
in the elements of Greek, Latin, and Mathe- 
matics. He was by education more fitted 
than any of his own rank in the Parish to 
assoiciate with the minister. Besides, he 
was mostly always an elder of the kirk, and 
the clerk of the kirk session ; and, in addition 
to all these ties, the school was generally in 
close proximity to the church and manse. 
The master thus became the minister’s right 
hand and confidential adviser, and the 
worthies often met. If the minister was a 
bachelor — a melancholy spectacle too often 
seen ! — the Schoolmaster more than any 
other neighbor cheered him in his loneliness. 


266 


A Highland Parish. 


lie knew all tlie peculiarities of his diocesan, 
and knew especially when he might “ step 
up to the Manse for a chat” without being 
thought intrusive. If, for example, it was 
Monday — the minister’s Sunday of rest — 
and if the day was wet, the roads muddy, the 
trees dripping, and the hens miserable, seek- 
ing shelter under carts in the farmyard, he 
knew well that ere evening came, the minis- 
ter would be glad to hear his rap break the 
stillness of the manse. Then seated to- 
gether in the small study before a cheerful 
fire, they would discuss many delicate ques- 
tions affecting the manners or morals of the 
flock, and talk about ongoings of the Parish, 
its births, marriages, and deaths ; its poor, 
sick, dying sufferers ; the state of the crops, 
and the prospects of good or bad “ Fiars 
prices,” and the prospects of good or bad 
stipends, which they regulated ; the chances 
of repairs or additions being obtained for 
manse, church, or school ; preachers and 
preaching ; Church and State politics — both 
being out-and-out Tories ; knotty theological 


The Schoolmaster. 


267 


points connected witli Calvinism or Armm- 
ianism ; with all the minor and more evanes- 
cent controversies of the hour. Or, if the 
evening was fine, they would walk in the 
garden to examine the flowers, or more prob- 
ably the vegetables, and dander over the 
glebe to inspect the latest improvements, 
when the master was sure to hear bitter 
complaints of the laziness of “ the minister’s 
man” John, whom he had been threatening 
to turn off for years, but who accepted the 
threats with as great ease of mind as he did 
his work. 

A Schoolmaster who had received licence 
to preach, and who consequently might be 
presented to a parish, if he could get one, 
belonged to the aristocracy of his profession. 
Not that he lived in a better house than his 
unlicensed and less educated brother, or re- 
ceived higher emoluments, or wore garments 
less glittering and japanned from polished 
old age. But the man in the pulpit w T as 
taller than the man in the school, addressed 
larger pupils, and had larger prospects. 


268 


A Highland Parish. 


Among those Schoolmasters who were also 
preachers, it was possible, I dare say, to iind 
a specimen of the Dominie Sampson class, 
with peculiarities and eccentricities which 
could easily account his failure as a preacher, 
and his equally remarkable want of success 
as a teacher. There was also a few, perhaps, 
who had soured tempers, and were often 
crabbed and cross in school and out of it. 
But don’t be too severe on the poor Do- 
minie ! He had missed a church for want of 
a patron, and, it must be acknowledged, 
from want of the gift of preaching, which he 
bitterly termed “ the gift of the gab.” In 
college he had taken the first rank in his 
classes : and no wonder, then, if he is a little 
mortified in seeing an old acquaintance who 
had been a notorious dunce obtain a good 
living through some of those subtile and in- 
fluential agencies, and “ pow’r o’ speech i’ 
the poopit,” neither of which he could com- 
mand, and who — oleaginous on the tiends — 
slowly jogged along the smooth road of life 
on a punchy, sleek horse, troubled chiefly 


The Schoolmaster. 


269 


about the great number of his children and 
the small number of his “ chalders it is no 
wonder, I say, that he is mortified at this, 
compelled, poor fellow, to whip his way, 
tawse in hand, through the mud of A B C 
and Syntax, Shorter Catechism, and long 
division, on a pittance of some sixty pounds 
a year. Kay, as it often happened, the mas- 
ter had a sore at his heart which few knew 
about. For when he was a tutor long ago 
in the family of a small Laird, he fell in love 
with the Laird’s daughter Mary, whose mind 
he had first wakened into thought, and first 
led into the land of poetry. She was to have 
married him, but not until he got a Parish, 
for the Laird would not permit his fair star 
to move in any orbit beneath that of the 
Manse circle. And long and often had the 
parish been expected, but just when the 
presentation seemed to be within his nerv- 
ous grasp, it had vanished through some un- 
expected mishap, and with its departure 
hope became more deferred, and the heart 
more sick, until Mary at last married, 


2 7 0 


A Highland Parish. 


and changed all things, to her old lover. 
She had not the pluck to stand by the mas- 
ter when the Laird of Blackmoss was pres- 
sing for her hand. And then the black 
curly hairs of the master turned to gray as 
the dream of his life vanished, and he awoke 
to the reality of a heart that can never love 
another, to a school with its A B C and Syn- 
tax. But somehow the dream comes back 
in its tenderness as he strokes the hair of 
some fair girl in the class and looks into her 
eyes ; or it comes back in its bitterness, and 
a fire begins to burn at his heart, which 
very possibly passes off like a shock of elec- 
tricity along his right arm, and down the 
black tawse, finally discharging itself with a 
flash and a roar into some lazy mass of agri- 
cultural flesh who happens to have a vulgar 
look like the Laird of Blackmoss, and an un- 
prepared lesson ! 

It often happened that those who were 
uncommonly bad preachers, were, neverthe- 
less, admirable teachers, especially if they 
had found suitable wives, and were softened 


The Schoolmaster. 


271 


by the amenities of domestic life ; above all 
when they had boys of their own to “ drill.” 
The Parish school then became a school of no 
mean order. The glory of the old Scotch tea- 
cher of his stamp, was to ground his pupils 
thoroughly in the elements of Greek and Latin. 
He hated all shams, and placed little value 
on what wa3 acquired without labor. To 
master details, to stamp grammar rules and 
prosody rules, thoroughly understood, upon 
the minds of his pupils as with a pen of iron ; 
to move slowly, but accurately through a 
classic, this was his delight ; not his work 
only, but his recreation, the outlet for his 
tastes and energies. lie had no long-spun the- 
ories about education, nor ever tried his 
hand adjusting the fine mechanism of boy’s 
motives. “ Do your duty and learn thor- 
oughly, or be well licked,” “Obedience, 
work, and no humbug,” were the axioms 
which expressed his views. When he found 
the boys honest at their work, he rejoiced in 
his own. And if he discovered one who 
seemed bitten with the love of Virgil or 


2J2 


A Highland Parisn. 


Homer ; if he discovered in his voice or look, 
by question or answer, that he u promised to 
be a good classic,” the Dominic had a ten- 
dency to make that boy a pet. On the an- 
nual examination by the Presbytery, with 
what a pleased smile did he contemplate 
his favorite in the hands of some competent 
and sympathising examiner ! And once a 
year on such a day the Dominie might so far 
forget his stern and iron rule as to chuck 
the boy under the chin, or clap him fondly 
on the back. 

I like to call those old teaching preachers 
to remembrance. Take them all in all, they 
were a singular body of men ; their humble 
homes, and poor salaries, and hard work, 
presenting a remarkable contrast to their 
manners, abilities, and literary culture. Scot- 
land owes to them a debt of gratitude that 
never can be repaid ; and many a successful 
minister, lawyer, and physician, is able to re- 
call some of those old teachers as his earliest 
and best friend, who first kindled in him the 


The Schoolmaster. 


273 


love of learning, and helped him in the pur- 
suit of knowledge under difficulties. > 

In cities the Schoolmaster may be nobody, 
lost in the great crowd of professional and 
commercial life, unless that august personage 
the Government Inspector appears in the 
school, and links its master and pupil teach- 
ers to the august and mysterious Privy Coun- 
cil located in the official limbo of Downing 
Street. But in a country parish, most of 
all in a Highland Parish, to which we must 
now return, the Schoolmaster or u Master ” 
occupied a most important position. 

The Schoolmaster of “ the Parish ” half a 
century ago was a strong built man, with 
such a face, crowned by such a head, that 
taking face and head together, one felt that 
he was an out-and-out man. A Celt he evi- 
dently was, full of emotion, that could be 
roused to vehemence, hut mild, modest, sub- 
dued, and firm, — a granite boulder covered 
with green moss, and hanging with flower, 
heather, and graceful fern. He had been 
three years at Glasgow University, attending 


274 


A Highland Parisn. 


the Greek, Latin, and logic classes. How he, 
the son of a very small farmer, had supported 
himself, is not easily explained. His fees, 
which probably amounted to 6L, were the 
heaviest item in his outlay. The lodgings oc 
cupied by him were in High Street, and he 
lived nearer the stars than men of greater 
ambition in Glasgow. His landlady, over- 
looking these peculiar privileges, charged but 
46-. or 6s. a-week for everything, including 
coals, gas, cooking, and attendance. He had 
brought a supply of potatoes, salt herrings, 
sausages, and salt fish from the Highlands, 
and a ham which seemed immortal from the 
day it was boiled. It was wonderful how the 
student with a few pounds eked out his fare 
with the luxuries of weak coffee and wlieaten 
bread for breakfast, and chop or mince-meat 
for dinner. And thus he managed, with a 
weekly sum which an unskilled laborer would 
consider wretched wages, to educate himself 
for three years at the University. He even- 
tually became a schoolmaster, elder, session 
clerk, precentor, postmaster, and catechist of 


The Schoolmaster. 


Z 7S 


“ the Parish,” offices sufficient perhaps to 
stamp him as incompetent by the Privy 
Council Committee acting under “ a Min- 
ute,” but nevertheless capable of being all 
duty duly discharged by “ the Master.” 

The school of course was his first duty, and 
there he diligently taught some fifty or sixty 
scholars in male and female petticoats for five 
days in the week, imparting knowledge of 
the “ usual branches,” and also instructing 
two or three pupils, including his own sons, 
in Greek, Latin, Mathematics. I am obliged 
to confess that neither the teacher nor the 
children had the slightest knowledge of physi- 
ology, chemistry, or even household economy. 
It is difficult to know, in these days of light, 
how they got on without it ; for the houses 
were all constructed on principles opposed 
in every respect to the laws of health as we 
at present understand them, and the cooking 
was confined chiefly to potatoes and porridge. 
Put whether it was the Highland air which 
they breathed, or the rain which daily 
washed them, or the absence of doctors, the 


2 ;6 


A Highland Parish. 


children who ought to have died by rule did 
not, but were singularly robust and remark- 
ably happy. In spite of bare feet and uncov- 
ered heads they seldom had colds, or, if they 
had, as Charles Lamb says, “ they took them 
kindly.” 

His most important work next to the 
school was catechising. By this is meant, 
teaching the “ Shorter Catechism ” of the 
church to the adult parishioners. The cus- 
tom was at certain seasons of the year, when 
the people were not busy at farm- work, to 
assemble them in different hamlets through 
out the Parish: if the weather was wet, in 
a barn ; if fine, on the green hill side, and 
there by question and answer, with explana- 
tory remarks, to indoctrine them into the 
great truths of religion. Many of the people 
in the more distant valleys, where even the 
small “ side schools” could not penetrate, 
were unable to read, but they had ears to 
hear, and hearts to feel, and through these 
channels they were instructed. These meet- 
ings were generally on Saturdays when the 


The Schoolmaster. 


277 


school was closed. But on all days of the 
week the sick, who were near enough to be 
visited, — that is, within ten miles or so, — 
had the benefit of the master’s teaching and 
pra^yers. 

The Schoolmaster, I have said, was also 
postmaster. But then the mail was but 
weekly, and by no means a heavy one. It 
contained only a few letters for the sheriff 
or the minister, and half-a-dozen to be deliv- 
ered as opportunity offered to outlying dis- 
tricts in the Parish, and these, with three or 
four newspapers a week old, did not occupy 
much of his time. The post, moreover, was 
never in a hurry. “ Post haste ” was un- 
known in those parts : the “ Poste restante” 
being much more common. The “ runner ” 
was a sedate walker, and never lost sight of 
his feelings as a man in his ambition as a 
post. Hor was the master’s situation as 
Precentor a position like that of organist in 
Westminster or St. Paul’s. His music was 
select, and confined to three or four tunes. 
These he modulated to suit his voice and 


278 


A Highland Parish. 


taste, which were peculiar and difficult to de- 
scribe. But the people understood both, and 
followed him on Sundays as far as their own 
peculiar voices and tastes would permit ; and 
thus his musical calling did not at all inter- 
fere with his week-day profession. 

It is impossible to describe the many wants 
which he supplied and the blessings which 
he conferred. There were few marriages of 
any parochial importance at which he was 
not an honored guest. In times of sickness, 
sorrow, or death, he was sure to be present 
with his subdued manner, tender sympathy, 
and Christian counsel. If any one wanted 
advice on a matter which did not seem of 
sufficient gravity to consult about at the 
Manse, “ the Master ” was called in. If a 
trustee was wanted by a dying man, who 
would deal kindly and honestly with his wid- 
ow and children, the master was sure to be 
nominated. He knew every one in the Par- 
ish, and all their belongings, as minutely as 
a man on the turf knows the horses and their 
pedigree. He was a true friend of the in- 


The Schoolmaster. 


279 


mates of the Manse, and the minister trusted 
him as he did no other man. When the 
minister was dying the schoolmaster watched 
him by night, and tended him as an old dis- 
ciple would have done one of the prophets, 
and left him not until with prayer he closed 
his eyes. 

His emoluments for all this labor were not 
extravagant. Let us calculate. He had 
fifteen pounds as schoolmaster, five pounds 
in school fees, seven pounds as postmaster, 
one pound as session clerk, one pound as 
leader of church psalmody, five pounds as 
catechist — thirty-four pounds in all, with 
house and garden. He had indeed- a small 
farm, or bit of ground, with two or three 
cows, a few sheep, and a few acres for pota- 
toes and oats or barley, but for all this he 
paid rent. So the emoluments were not 
large. The house was a thatched cottage, 
with what the Scotch call a “ butt and ben,” 
the “butt” being half kitchen, half bedroom, 
with a peat fire on the floor, the “ ben” hav- 
ing also a bed, but being dignified by a 


28 o 


A Highland Parish. 


grate. Between them was a small bed closet 
separated from the passage by a wicker par- 
tition. All the floors were clay. Above was 
a garret or loft reached by a ladder, and con- 
taining amidst a dim light, a series of beds 
and shakes-down like a barrack. In this home 
father, mother, and a family of four sons and 
three daughters were accommodated. The 
girls learned at home — in addition to the 
“ three r’s ” learned at school — to sew and 
spin, card wool, and sing songs ; while the 
boys, after preparing their Virgil or arithme- 
tic sums for next day, went in the evening 
to fish, to work in the garden or on the farm, 
to drive home the cattle, to cut peats for 
fuel or stack them, to reap ferns and house 
them for bedding the cattle in winter, or 
make composts for the fields, and procure 
moss and other unmentionable etceteras. 

When darkness came they gathered round 
the fire, while some made baskets, repaired 
the horses’ harness or their own shoes, or 
made fishing lines and “ busked ” hooks ; 
others would discourse sweet music from the 


The Schoolmaster. 


281 

trump, and all in their turn tell stories to 
pass the time pleasantly. The grinding of 
meal for porridge or fuarag was a common 
occupation. This fuarag was a mixture 
made up of meal freshly ground from corn 
that had been well toasted and dried before 
the fire, and then whipped up with thick 
cream — a dainty dish to set before a king ! 
The difficulty in making it good was the get- 
ting of corn freshly toasted and meal freshly 
ground. It was prepared by means of a quern 
which at that time was in almost every 
house. The quern consisted of two round 
flat stones, of about a foot in diameter, and 
an inch or so thick, corresponding to the 
grinding stones in a mill. The lower stone 
was fixed, and the upper being fitted into it 
by a circular groove, was made to revolve 
rapidly upon it, while the corn was poured 
through a hole in the upper stone to be 
ground between the two. It was worked 
thus. A clean white sheet was spread over 
the bed in the kitchen. The mill was placed 
in the centre. One end of a stick was then 


282 


A Highland Parisn, 


inserted into a hole in the upper stone to 
turn it round, while the other end of the 
stick, to give it a purchase and keep it stea- 
dy, was fixed in the twist of a rope stretched 
diagonally from one bedpost to another. The 
miller sat in the bed, with a leg on each side 
of the quern, and seizing the stack, rapidly 
turned the stone, while the parched corn was 
poured in. When ground it was taken away 
and cleared of all husks. The dry new meal 
being whipped up with rich cream the fuarag 
was ready, and then — lucky the boy who got 
it ! I cannot forget the mill or its product 
having had the privilege of often sharing in 
the labors of the one, and enjoying the luxu- 
ry of the other. 

Our Schoolmaster could not indeed give en- 
tertainments worthy of a great educational 
institute, nor did he live in the indulgence 
of any delicacies greater than the one I 
have dwelt upon, if indeed, there was 
any greater then in existence. There was 
for breakfast the never failing porridge 
and milk — and such milk ! — with oat cakes 


The Schoolmaster. 


283 

and barley scones for those who preferred 
them, or liked them as a top-dressing. 
On Sundays, there were tea and eggs. 
The dinner never wanted noble potatoes with 
their white powdery waistcoats, revealing 
themselves under the brown jackets. At 
that time they had not fallen into the 
“ sear and yellow leaf,” but retained all 
their pristine youth and loveliness as wdien 
they rejoiced the heart of some Peruvian 
Inca in the land of their nativity. With 
such dainties, whether served up “ each like 
a star that dwelt apart,” or mashed with 
milk, or a little fresh butter, into a homogen- 
eous mass, what signified their accompani- 
ments ? Who will inquire anxiously about 
them ? There may have been sometimes 
salt herring, sometimes other kinds of sea-fish 
- — lythe, rock-cod, mackerel, or saitlie, but 
oftener the unapproachable milk alone ! At 
times a fat hen, and bit of pork, or blackfaced 
mutton, would mar the simplicity of the din- 
ner. When these came, in Providence, they 
were appreciated. But whatever the food 


284 


A Highland Parish. 


all who partook of it ate it heartily, digested 
it with amazing rapidity, and never were the 
worse, hut always the better for it. "No one 
had headaches, or ever heard of medicine ex- 
cept in sermons ; and all this is more than 
can be said of most feasts, from those of the 
excellent Lord Mayor of London downwards, 
in all of which the potatoes and milk are 
shamefully ignored, while salt herring and 
potatoes — the most savory of all dishes — and 
even fuarag, are utterly forgotten. 

Handless people, who buy everything they 
require, can have no idea how the School- 
master managed to get clothes ; yet they al- 
ways were clothed, and comfortably, too. 
There was wool afforded by their own few 
slieep, or cheaply obtained from their neigh- 
bors, and the mother and daughter employed 
themselves during the long winter nights in 
carding and spinning it. Then Callum the 
weaver took it into hand to weave it into 
tartans, of any known Celtic pattern : and 
Peter the tailor undertook to shape it into 
comely garments for father or son ; while the 


The Schoolmaster. 


285 


female tailors at home had no difficulty in ar- 
ranging suitable garments out of their own 
portion of the wool. As for shoes, a hide or 
two of leather was purchased, and John the 
shoemaker, like Peter the tailor, would come 
to the house and live there, and tell his 
stories, and pour out the country news, and 
rejoice in the potatoes, and look balmy over 
the fuarag. Peter the tailor, when he went, 
left beautiful suits of clothes behind him ; 
John the shoemaker completed the adorn- 
ment by most substantial shoes — wanting 
polish probably, and graceful shapes, but nev- 
ertheless strong and victorious in every bat- 
tle with mud and water, and possessing 
powerful thongs and shining tackets. And 
thus the family were clothed, if we except 
the kilts of the younger boys, which neces- 
sarily left Nature, with becoming confidence 
in her powers, to a large portion of the work 
about the limbs. The masters suit of black 
was also an exception. When that suit was 
purchased was a point not easily determined. 
It was generally understood to have been ob- 
tained when the Schoolmaster went on his 


286 


A Highland Parish. 


first and last journey to see George IY. in 
Edinburgh. The suit was folded in his large 
green chest behind the door, and was only 
visible once a year at the communion, or 
when some great occasion, such as a mar- 
riage or a funeral, called it forth into sun- 
light. The tartan coat and home made 
woollen trousers were at such times exchang- 
ed for black broadcloth, and the black silk 
neckcloth for a white cravat ; and then the 
Schoolmaster, with his grave countenance 
and grey whiskers, and bald head, might pass 
for a professor of theology or the bishop of 
a diocese. 

The worthy Schoolmaster is long since 
dead. He died, as he had lived, in peace 
with God and man. The official residence 
has been changed to another part of the Par- 
ish, and when I last saw the once happy and 
contented home of the good man, with whom 
I had spent many happy days, the garden 
was obliterated, the footpaths covered with 
grass, and the desolation of many years was 
over it. Yerily, the place that once knew 
him knew him no more. 



XIV. 

The Emigrant Ship.™ 


R ETURNING from Iona Oil the loveliest 
summer evening which I ever beheld, 
we reached a safe and sheltered bay at the 
north end of the Island of Mull. I never saw 
a harbor so well defended from the violence 
of winds and waves. A long narrow island 
encircled it seawards, spreading its friendly 
wings over every vessel that comes to seek 
its covert from the storms of ocean, or to 
await under its shelter for favorable weather 
to double the great headland beyond. On 
the right hand where we entered, the land 


* From the Gaelic of the late Rev. Dr. Macleod, of 
St. Columba’s, Glasgow. 


288 


A Highland Parish. 


rises up steep and abrupt from the shore. 
We sailed so close to the rocks, that the 
branches of the trees were bending over us. 
The fragrance of the birch was wafted on the 
breeze of summer, and a thousand little birds 
with their sweet notes, were singing to us 
from amid the branches, bidding us welcome 
as we glided smoothly and gently past them. 
A glorious view presented itself to me wher- 
ever I turned my eye. I saw the lofty 
mountains of Ardnamurchan clothed in 
green to their very summits; Suanard, with 
its beautifully outlined hills and knolls ; the 
coast of Morven stretching away from us, re- 
joicing in the warmth of the summer eve- 
ning. 

When we neared the anchorage there was 
nothing to be seen but masts of ships, with 
their flags floating lazily in the gentle breeze 
— nor to be heard, except the sound of oars, 
and the murmur of brooks and streams, which, 
falling over many a rock, were pouring into 
the wide bay, now opening before us. From 
side to side of the shore, on the one hand, 


The Emigrant Ship. 


289 

there runs a street of white houses ; and im- 
mediately behind them there rises up a steep 
bank, where the hazel, the rowan, and the 
ash grow luxuriantly, and so very close to 
the houses that the branches seem to bend 
over their tops. At the summit of this lofty 
bank the other portion of the small town is 
seen between you and the sky, presenting a 
view striking for its beauty and singularity. 

The bay, however, presented the most in- 
teresting sight. There were in it scores of 
vessels of different sizes ; many a small boat 
with its painted green oars ; the gay lirlinn 
with its snow-white sails, and the war-ship 
with its lofty masts and royal flag. But in 
the midst of them all I marked one ship 
which was to me of surpassing interest. 
Many little boats were pressing towards her, 
and I noticed that she was preparing to un- 
moor. There was one man in our boat who 
had joined us at the back of Mull, and who 
had not during the whole day, once raised his 
head, but who now was scanning this great 
ship with the keenest anxiety. 

10 


290 A Highland Parish. 

“■Do yon know,” I asked, “ what this skip 
is ? ” 

“ Alas !” said he, “ J tis I who do know her. 
Grieved am I to say that there are too many 
of my acquaintances in her. In her are my 
brothers, and many of my dearest friends, de- 
parting on a long, mournful voyage for 
North America. And sad is it that I have 
not what would enable me to accompany 
them.” 

We pulled towards the vessel ; for I con- 
fess I felt strongly desirous of seeing these 
warm-hearted men who, on this very day, 
were to bid a last farewell to the Highlands, 
in search of a country where they might find 
a permanent home for themselves and fami- 
lies. It is impossible to convey to any one 
who was not present, a true idea of the scene 
which presented itself on going on board. 
Never will it fade from my memory. They 
were here, young and old — from the infant 
to the patriarch. It was most overwhelming 
to witness the deep grief, the trouble of 
spirit, the anguish and brokenness of heart, 


The Emigrant Ship. 


291 


which deeply furrowed the countenances of 
the greater number of these men, here as- 
sembled from many an island and distant 
portion of the Hebrides. 

I was, above all, struck with the appear- 
ance of one man, aged and blind, who was 
sitting apart, with three or four young boys 
clustered around him, each striving who 
could press most closely to his breast. His 
old arms were stretched over them ; his head 
w T as bent towards them ; his grey locks and 
their brown curly hair mingling, while his 
tears, -in a heavy shower, were falling on 
them. Sitting at his feet was a respectably 
dressed woman, sobbing in the anguish of 
bitter grief ; and I understood that a man 
who was walking backwards and forwards, 
with short steps and folded hands, was her 
husband. His eye was restless and unset- 
tled, and his troubled countenance told that 
his mind was far from peace. I drew near to 
the old man, and in gentle language asked 
him if he, in the evening of his days, was 
about to leave his native land. 


292 


A Highland Parish. 


“ Is it I, going over the ocean V ' ’ said lie, 
“ JSTo ! On no journey will I go, until the 
great journey which awaits us all ; and when 
that comes, who will bear my head to the 
burial ? You are gone ; you are gone ; to-day 
I am left alone, blind and aged, without bro- 
ther or son, or support. To-day is the day 
of my desolation, God forgive me ! thou 
Mary, my only child, with my fair and lovely 
grandchildren, art about to leave me ! I will 
return to-night to the old glen ; but it is a 
strange hand that will lead me. You, my 
beloved children, will not come out to meet 
the old man. I will no more hear the prattle 
of your tongues by the river-side, and no 
more shall I cry, as I used to do, though I 
saw not the danger, ‘Keep back from the 
stream !’ "When I hear the barking of the 
dogs, no more will my heart leap upwards, 
saying, ‘My children are coming.’ Who 
now will guide me to the shelter of the rock, 
or read to me the holy book ? And to-mor- 
row night, when the sun sinks in the west, 


The Emigrant Ship. 


2 9 3 


where will you be, children of my love ? or 
who will raise the evening hymn with me ?” 

“ Oh, father,” said his daughter, creeping 
close to him, “ do not break my heart !” 

“ Art thou here, Mary ?” said he. u Where 
is thy hand ? Come nearer to me. My de- 
light of all women in the world. Sweet to 
me is thy voice. Thou art parting with me. 
I do not blame thee, neither do I complain. 
Thou hast my full sanction. Thou hast the 
blessing of thy God. As was thy mother be- 
fore thee, be thou dutiful. As for me, I will 
not long stand. To-day I am stripped of my 
lovely branches, and light is the breeze 
which will lay low my old head. But while 
I live, God will uphold me ! He was ever 
with me in every trial, and He will not now 
forsake me. Blind though I be, yet blessed 
be His name ! He enables me to see at His 
own right hand my best Friend, and in His 
countenance I see gentleness and love. At 
this very moment He gives me strength. His 
promises come home to my heart. Other 
trees may wither; but the ‘ Tree of Life 5 


294 


A Highland Parish 


fades not. Are you all near me ? Listen,” 
said, he, “ we are now about to part. You 
are going to a land far away ; and probably 
before you reach it I shall be in the lofty 
land where the sun ever shines, and where, 
I trust, we shall all meet again ; and where 
there shall be no partings, nor removals. No. 
Eemember the God of your fathers, and fall 
not away from any one good habit which you 
have learned. Evening and morning, bend 
the knee. Evening and morning, raise the 
hymn, as we were wont to do. And you, my 
little children, who were as eyes and as a 
staff unto me— you, who I thought would 
place the sod over me — must I part with 
you ? God be my helper ! ” 

I could not remain longer. The little boat 
which was to bear the old man to the shore 
had come to the side of the ship. Those who 
were waiting on him informed him of this. 
I fled ; I could not witness the miserable 
separation. 

In another part of the vessel there was a 
company of men, whom I understood from 


The Emigrant Ship. 


295 


their dress and language to belong to the 
Northern Islands. They were keenly and 
anxiously watching a boat which was coming 
round a point, urged alike by sails and oars. 
Whenever they saw her making for the ship, 
they shouted out: “ It is he himself! Bles- 
sings on his head P There was one person 
among them who seemed more influential 
than the others. When he observed this 
boat, he went to the captain of the ship, and 
I observed that the sailors who were aloft 
among the masts and spars were ordered to 
descend, and that the preparations for imme- 
diate sailing were suspended. The boat ap- 
proached. A11 aged, noble-looking man who 
was sitting in the stern, rose up, and, al- 
though his head was white as the snow, he 
ascended the side of the ship with a firm vig- 
orous step, dispensing with any assistance. 
The captain saluted him with the utmost re- 
spect. He looked around him, and quickly 
noticing the beloved group who had been 
watching for him, he walked towards them. 
“ God be with you P he said to them, as they 


zg6 A Highland Parish. 

all rose up, bonnet in hand, to do him rever- 
ence. He sat down among them. For a 
while lie leaned his head on the staff which 
was in his hand, and I observed that great 
tears were rolling down his face— one of the 
most pleasant faces I had ever looked on. 
They all grouped around him, and some of 
the children sat at his feet. There was some- 
thing in the appearance of this patriarchal 
man which could not fail to draw one to- 
wards him. Such goodness and gentleness 
surrounded him that the most timid would 
be encouraged to approach him ; and, at the 
same time, such lofty command in his eye 
and brow as would cause the boldest to quail- 
before him. 

“ You have come,” said they, “ according 
to your promise ; you never neglected us in 
the day of our need. To-night we are to be- 
come wanderers over the face of the ocean, 
and before the sun will rise over those hills 
we shall be for ever out of their sight. ¥e 
are objects of pity to-day — day of our ruin !” 

u Fet me hear no such language,” said the 


The Emigrant Ship. 


297 

minister. “ Be manly ; this is not the time 
for you to yield. Place your confidence in 
God : for it is not without His knowledge 
that you go on this journey. It is through 
Ilis providence that all things are brought 
to pass ; but you speak as if you were to 
travel beyond the bounds of the kingdom of 
the Almighty, and to go whither His Father- 
ly care could not extend unto you. Alas ! 
is this all your faith ?” 

u This is all true,” answered they ; “ but 
the sea — the great wide ocean ?” 

“ The sea !” said he, “ why should it cast 
down or disquiet you ? Is not God present 
on the great ocean as on the land ; under the 
guidance of His wisdom, and the protection 
of His pow T er, are you not as safe on the wide 
ocean as you ever were in the most sheltered 
glen ? Does not the God who made the 
ocean, go forth on its proud waves ? Hot 
one of them will rise against you without 
His knowledge. It is He who stills the rag- 
ing of the sea. He goeth forth over the 
ocean in the chariots of the wind as surely as 


298 


A Highland Parisn. 


lie is in tlie heavens. Oil, ye of little faith, 
wherefore do ye doubt?” 

“ We are leaving our native land,” said 
they. 

“ You are indeed leaving the place of your 
birth,” he replied,. “the island where you 
you were nourished and reared. You are 
certainly going on a long journey, and it 
need not be concealed that there are hard- 
ships awaiting you, but these do not come 
unexpectedly on you : you may be prepared 
to meet them. And as to leaving our coun- 
try, the children of men have no permanent 
hold of any country under the sun. We are 
all strangers and pilgrims, and it is not in 
this world that God gives any of us that 
home from which there is no departure.” 

“ That is undoubtedly true,” said they; 
“ but we go as ‘ sheep without a shepherd.’ 
Without a guide to consult us in our per- 
plexities. Oh, it you had been going with 
us !” 

“ Silence !” said he. “ Let me not hear 
such language. Are you going further from 


The Emigrant Sh’p. 


299 

God than you were before ? Is it not the 
same Lord that opened your eyelids to-day 
and raised you from the slumber of the night, 
who rules on the other side of the world ? 
Who stood by Abraham when he left his 
country and his kindred ? Who showed him- 
self to Jacob when he left his father’s house, 
and slept in the open field ? Be ashamed of 
yourselves for your want of trust. Did you 
say you were as ‘ sheep without a shepherd ’ ? 
Is there any, even the youngest of your 
children, who cannot repeat these words — 

4 The Lord ’s my shepherd, I ’ll not want ’ ? 
Has not the Great Shepherd of the sheep 
said — ‘Fear not; for I am with thee. Be 
not dismayed; for I am thy God’? Has 
He not said — ‘ When thou passest through 
the waters I will be with thee : and through 
the rivers, they shall not overflow thee ’ ? 
There are not, perhaps, houses of worship so 
accessible to you where you are going, as 
they were in your native land; nor are min- 
isters of religion so numerous. But remem- 
ber you the day of the Lord. Assemble 


300 


A. Highland Parish. 


yourselves under the shelter of the rock, or 
under the shade of the tree. Raise up togeth- 
er the songs of Zion, remembering that the 
gracious presence of God is not confined to 
any one place ; that, by those who sincerely 
seek Him in the name of Christ, He is to be 
found on the peak of the highest mountain, 
in the strath of the deepest glen, or in the in- 
nermost shade of the forest, as well as in the 
midst of the great city, or in the most costly 
temple ever reared by man’s hands. You 
are all able to read the holy word. Had it. 
been otherwise, heavy indeed would be my 
heart, and very sad the parting. I know 
you have some Bibles with you ; but you will 
to-day accept from me, each a new Bible, one 
that is easily carried and handled ; and you 
will not value them the less that your names 
are written in them by the hand which 
sprinkled the water of baptism on the most 
of you — which has often since been raised up 
to Heaven in prayers for you, and which will 
continue to be raised for you with good hope 
through Christ until death shall disable it. 


The Emigrant Ship. 


301 

And you, my little children, the precious 
lambs of my flock, now about to leave me, I 
have brought for you also some slight memo- 
rials of my great love to you. May God bless 
you !” 

“ Oh,” said they, “ how thankful are we 
that we have seen you once more, and that 
we have again heard your voice !” 

The people of the ship were now generally 
gathered round this group, and even the 
sailors, though some of them did not under- 
stand his language, perceived it was in mat- 
ters pertaining to the Soul he was engaged. 
There was so much earnestness, warmth, and 
kindliness in his appearance and voice, that 
they all stood reverently still ; and I saw sev- 
eral of them hiding the tears which rolled 
down those cheeks that had been hardened 
by many a storm. 

The reverend man uncovered his head, 
and stood up. Every one perceived his pur- 
pose. Some kneeled down, and those who 
stood cast their eyes downwards, when in a 


3°2 


A H ghland P m,h. 


clear, strong voice lie said, a Let ns pray for 
the blessing of God.” Hard indeed would 
be the heart which would not melt, and little 
to be envied the spirit which would not be- 
come solemnized, while the earnest, warm- 
hearted prayer was being offered up by this 
good man, who was himself raised above the 
world. Many a poor faint-hearted one was 
encouraged. His words fell like the dew of 
the evening, and the weak, drooping 
branches were strengthened and refreshed. 

While they were on their knees I heard 
heavy sighings and sobbings, which they 
strove hard to smother. But when they rose 
up I saw through the mist of the bitter tears 
which they were now wiping off, the signs of 
fresh hope beaming from their eyes. He 
opened the Book of Psalms, and the most 
mournful, the most affecting in every way, 
yet at the same time the most joyful sacred 
song which I ever heard was raised by them 
all. The solemn sound reached every ship 
and boat in the harbor. Every oar rested. 


The Emigrant Ship. 


3°3 


There was perfect silence ; a holy calm as 
they sang a part of the forty-second Psalm. 

“ O ! why art thou cast down, my soul ? 

Why, thus with grief opprest ? 

Art thou disquieted in me ? 

In God still hope and rest : 

For yet I know I shall Him praise 
Who graciously to me 
The health is of my countenance, 

Yea, mine own God is He.” 




XV. 


The Communion Sunday. 

N a beautiful Sunday in July I once 



V_7 again sat down at the foot of the old 
Iona-cross in the churchyard of “ the Par- 
ish.” It was a day of perfect summer glory. 
Never did the familiar landscape appear 
more lovely to the eye or more soothing and 
sanctifying to the spirit. The Sound of Mull 
lay like a sea of glass, without even a breath 
of fitful air from the hills to ruffle its surface. 
White sails met their own shadows on the 
water ; becalmed vessels mingled with grey 
islets, rocky shores, and dark bays, diminish- 
ing in bulk from the large brigs and schoon- 
ers at my feet to the snow-white specks 
which dotted the blue of the sea and hills of 
Lorn. The precipice of Unnimore, streaked 


The Communion Sunday. 305 


with waterfalls, rose in the clear air above 
the old Keep of Ardtornish. The more dis- 
tant castled promontory of Duart seemed to 
meet Lismore. Aros Castle, with its ample 
bay, closed the view in the opposite direc- 
tion to the west; while over all the land- 
scape a Sabbath stillness reigned, like an in- 
visible mantle of love let down from the 
cloudless heaven over the weary world be- 
low. 

It was a Communion Sunday in u the Pa- 
rish.” 

Few of the people had as yet arrived, and 
the churchyard was as silent as its graves. 
But soon the roads and paths leading to the 
church from the distant glens and nearer 
hamlets began to stir with the assembling 
worshippers. A few boats were seen crossing 
the Sound, crowded with people coming to 
spend a day of holy peace. Shepherds in 
their plaids ; old men and old women, with 
the young of the third generation accompa- 
nying them, arrived in groups. Some had 
left hours ago. Old John Cameron, with 


go 6 • A Highland Parish. 

fourscore-years-and-ten to carry, liad walked 
from Kinloch, ten miles' across the pathless 
hills. Other patriarchs, with staff in hand, 
had come greater distances. Old women 
were dressed in their clean white “ mutches,” 
with black ribands bound round their heads, 
and some of the more gentle-born had rags 
of old decency — a black silk scarf, fastened 
with an old silver brooch, or a primitive 
shaped bonnet — adornments never taken out 
of the large wooden chest since they were 
made, half a century ago, except on such oc- 
casions as the present, or on the occasion of 
a family marriage feast, or a funeral, when a 
bit of decayed crape was added. And old 
men were there who had seen better days, 
and had been gentlemen tacksmen in “ the 
good old times,” when the Duke of Argyle 
was laird. Now their clothes are threadbare ; 
the old blue coat with metal buttons is al- 
most bleached ; the oddly shaped hat and 
silk handkerchief, both black once, are very 
brown indeed ; and the leather gloves, 
though rarely on, are yet worn out, and can- 


The Communion Sunday. 307 

not stand farther mending. But these are 
gentlemen nevertheless in every thought and 
feeling. And some respectable farmers from 
“ the low country,” who occupy the lands of 
these old tacksmen, travelled in their gigs. 
Besides these, there were one or two of the 
local gentry, and the assisting clergymen. 

How quiet and reverent all the people 
look, as, with steps unheard on the green- 
sward, they collect in groups and greet each 
other with so much warmth and cordiality ! 
Many a hearty shake of the hand is given — 
and many a respectful bow, from old grey 
heads uncovered, is received and returned 
by their beloved Pastor, who moves about, 
conversing with them all. 

Ho one can discover any other expression 
than that of the strictest decorum and sober 
thoughtfulness, among the hundreds who are 
here assembling for worship. 

It has been the fashion indeed, of some 
people who know nothing about Scotland or 
her Church, to use Burns as an authority for 
calling such meetings “ holy fairs.” What 


308 


A Highland Parish. 


they may have been in the days of the poet, 
or how much he may himself have contribut- 
ed to profane them, I know not. But neither 
in Ayrshire nor anywhere else have I ever 
been doomed to behold so irreverent and 
wicked a spectacle as he portrays. The 
question was indeed asked by a comparative 
stranger, on the Communion Sunday I am 
describing, whether the fact of so many peo- 
ple coming from such great distances might 
not be a temptation to some to indulge over- 
much when taking refreshments. The reply 
by one who knew them well was, “ No, sir, 
not one man will go home in a state unbeco- 
ming a Christian.” 

The sentiment of gratitude was, naturally 
enough, often repeated — “ Oh ! thank God 
for such a fine day !” For weather is an ele- 
ment which necessarily enters into every 
calculation of times and seasons in the High- 
lands. If the day is stormy, the old and in- 
firm cannot come up to this annual feast, nor 
can brother clergymen voyage from distant 
Island Parishes to attend it. Why, in the 


The Communion Sunday. 


309 


time of the old minister, he had to send a 
man on horseback over moors, and across 
stormy arms of the sea, for sixty miles, to get 
the wheaten bread used at the Communion ! 
And for this reason, while the Communion 
is dispensed in smaller parishes and in towns 
every six months, and sometimes every quar- 
ter, it has hitherto been only celebrated once 
a year in most Highland Parishes. At such 
seasons, however, every man and woman 
who is able to appear, partakes of the holy 
feast. Ho wonder, therefore, the people are 
grateful for their lovely summer day ! 

The previous Thursday ad been, as usual, 
set apart for a day of fasting and prayer. 
Then the officiating clergyman preached spe- 
cially upon the Communion, and on the cha- 
racter required in those who intended to 
partake of it ; and then young persons, after 
instruction and examination, were for the 
first time formally admitted (as at confirma- 
tion in the Episcopal Church) into full mem- 
bership. 

The old bell, which it is said was once at 


310 


A Highland Parish. 


Iona, began to ring over tlie silent fields, and 
tlie small churcli was soon filled with wor- 
shippers. The service in the church to-day 
was in English, and a “ tent,” as it is called, 
(I remember when it was made of boat sails,) 
was, according to custom, erected near the 
old arch in the churchyard, where service 
was conducted in Gaelic. Thus the people 
were divided, and, while some entered the 
church, many more gathered round the tent, 
and seated themselves on the graves or on 
the old ruin. 

The Communion service of the Church of 
Scotland is a very simple one, and may be 
briefly described. It is celebrated in the 
church, of course, after the service and pray- 
ers are ended. In most cases a long, narrow 
table, like a bench, covered with white 
cloth, occupies the whole length of the 
church, and the communicants are seated on 
each side of it. Sometimes, in addition to 
this the ordinary seats are similarly covered. 
The presiding minister, after reading an ac- 
count of the institution from the Gospels and 


The Communion Sunday. 311 

Epistles, and giving a few words of suitable 
instruction,, offers up what is called the con- 
secration prayer, thus setting apart the bread 
and wine before him as symbols of the body 
and blood of Jesus. After this he takes the 
bread, and, breaking it, gives it to the com- 
municants near him, saying, “ This is my 
body, broken for you, eat ye all of it.” He 
afterwards hands to them the cup, saying, 
“ This, cup is the Hew Testament in my 
blood, shed for the remission of the sins 
of many, drink ye ail of it ; for as oft as ye 
eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do 
show forth the Lord’s death until He do 
come again.” The bread and wine are then 
passed from the communicants to each other, 
assisted by the elders who are in attendance. 
In solemn silence the Lord is remembered, 
and by every true communicant is received 
as the living bread, the life of their souls, 
even as they receive into their bodies the 
bread and wine. During the silence of com- 
munion every head is bowed down, and ma- 
ny an eye and heart are filled, as the 


312 A Highland Parish. 

thoughts of Jesus at such a time mingle with 
those departed ones with whom they enjoy, 
in and through Him, the communion of 
saints. Then follows an exhortation by the 
minister to faith and love and renewed obe- 
dience ; and then the 103d Psalm is general- 
ly sung, and while singing it the worshippers 
retire from the table, which is soon filled 
with other communicants ; and this is re- 
peated several times, until the whole .service 
is ended wdth prayer and praise. 

Let no one thoughtlessly condemn these 
simple services because they are different in 
form from those he has been accustomed to. 
Each nation and church has its own peculiar 
customs, originating generally in circumstan- 
ces which once made them natural, reasona- 
ble, or perhaps necessary. Although these 
originating causes have passed away, yet the 
peculiar forms remain, and become familiar 
to the people, and venerable, almost holy, 
from linking the past with the present. Ac- 
quaintance with other branches of the Chris- 
tian Church ; a knowledge of living men, 


The Communion Sunday. 313 

and the spirit with which the truly good 
serve God according to the custom of their 
fathers ; a dealing, too, with the realities of 
human life and Christian experience, rather 
than with the ideal of what might, could, 
would, or should he, will tend to make us 
charitable in our judgments of those who re- 
ceive good and express their love to God 
through outward forms very different from 
our o^vn. Let us thank God when men see 
and are guided by true light, whatever may 
be the form or setting of the lens by which 
it is transmitted. Let us endeavor to pene- 
trate beneath the variable, the temporary, 
and accidental, to the unchangeable, the 
eternal, and necessary ; and then we shall 
bless God when, among “ different commu- 
nions ” and different sacraments, we can dis- 
cover earnest believing souls, who have com- 
munion with the same living Saviour, who 
receive with faith and love the same precious 
sacrifice to be their life. I have myself, with 
great thankfulness, been privileged to re- 
ceive the sacrament from the hands of priests 


A Highland Parish. 


3 H 

and bishops in the rural churches and hoary 
cathedrals of England, and to join in differ- 
ent parts of the world, east and west, with 
brethren of different names, but all having 
the same faith in the One Name, of whom 
“ the whole family in heaven and earth is 
named.” I am sure the communion of spirit 
was the same in all. 

Close behind the churchyard w T all I no- 
ticed a stone which marked the grave, of an 
old devoted Wesleyan minister. lie was a 
lonely man, without any kindred dust to lie 
with. It had been his wish to be buried 
here, beside a child whom he had greatly 
admired and loved. “ In memory,” so runs 
the inscription, “ of Bobert Harrison, mis- 
sionary of the Lord, who died 29th January, 
1832. I have sinned ; I have repented — I 
have believed, I love ; and I rest in the hope 
that by the grace of God I shall rise and 
reign with my Eedeemer throughout eterni- 
ty.” Beyond the churchyard are a few old 
trees surrounding a field where, according to 
tradition, once stood the palace of Bishop 


The Communion Sunday. 


315 


Maclean. The Bishop himself lies under the 
old archway, near the grave of Flora Came- 
ron. Now, I felt assured that could Wes- 
leyan missionary and Episcopalian bishop 
have returned to earth, they would neither 
of them have refused to have remembered 
Jesus with these Presbyterian worshippers, 
nor would they have said “ this is no true 
Sacrament.” 

Wl;en the service in the church was end- 
ed, I again sat down beside the old cross. 
The most of the congregation had assembled 
around the tent in the churchyard near me. 
The officiating minister was engaged in 
prayer, in the midst of the living and the 
dead. The sound of his voice hardly dis- 
turbed the profound and solemn silence. One 
heard with singular distinctness the bleating 
of the lambs on the hills, the hum of the 
passing bee, the lark “ singing like an angel 
in the clouds,” with the wild cries coming 
from the distant sea of birds that flocked 
over their prey. Suddenly the sound of 


31 6 


A Highland Parish. 


psalms rose from among the' tombs. It was 
the thanksgiving and parting hymn of praise. 

“ Salvation and immortal praise 
To our victorious King. 

Let heaven and earth, and rocks and seas, 
With glad hosannas ring ! 

To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 

The God whom we adore 
Be glory as it was and is, 

And shall be evermore !” 

So sang those humble peasants, ere they 
parted to their distant homes — some to meet 
again in communion here, some to meet at a 
nobler feast above. So sang they that noble 
hymn, among the graves of their kindred, 
with whose voices theirs had often mingled 
on the same spot, and with whose spirits 
they still united in remembering and prais- 
ing; the living; Saviour. 

Some, perhaps, there are, who would have 
despised or pitied that hymn of praise be- 
cause sung with so little art. But a hymn 
was once sung; long; ag;o, on an evening; after 
the first Lord’s Supper, by a few lowly men 
in an upper chamber of Jerusalem, and the 


The Communion Sunday. 


3 l 7 


listening angels never heard such music as- 
cending to the ears of God from this jarring 
and discordant world ! The humble Lord 
who sang that hymn, and who led that cho- 
rus of fishermen, will not despise the praises 
of peasant saints ; nor will the angels think 
the songs of the loving heart out of harmony 
with the noblest chords struck from their 
own golden harps, or the noblest anthems 
sung in God’s temple in the sky. 

As the congregation dispersed, and the 
shades of evening began to fall, I went to 
visit the spot where the many members of 
the old Manse repose. A new grave was 
there, which had that week been opened. In 
it was laid the wife of the parish minister. 
This was the last of many a sad procession 
which he had followed from the old Manse 
to that burying-place since boyhood, and of 
all it was the most grievous to be borne. But 
of that sweet one so suddenly taken away, or 
of the bitter sorrow left behind, I dare not 
here speak. 

These “ reminiscences ” began with death, 
and with death they end. 


A Highland Parish. 


318 

As I stood to-day among the graves of the 
Manse family, and sat in the little garden 
which its first-born cultivated as a child 
nearly eighty years ago, and as at midnight 
I now write these lines where so many be- 
loved faces pass before me, which made oth- 
er years a continual benediction, I cannot 
conclude my reminiscences of this dear old 
parish, which I leave at early dawn, without 
expressing my deep gratitude to Almighty 
God for his gift of those who once here lived, 
but who now live for evermore with Christ — • 
enjoying an eternal Communion Sunday. 























































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